On Jun. 23, 2009, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced advanced development contract for new way to make flu vaccine.

The work was done by Protein Sciences Corp. located in Meriden, Conn. under a $35 million contract. The contract could be extended up to five years at a total cost of approximately $147 million.

Unlike the conventional method of using chicken eggs to grow flu vaccines – a process that can take four to six months – the new technology, known as recombinant influenza vaccine, places a gene from a flu virus into an insect virus that can multiply quickly in insect cells, which are then purified for use in a human vaccine.