Word: chiron
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...have the national recognition of a Genentech or Cetus, but Chiron Corp., a small genetic-engineering firm (1987 sales: $20 million) in Emeryville, Calif., has had more than its share of biotech success. Two years ago, a preparation it developed with New Jersey-based Merck to ward off the liver-damaging effects of hepatitis B became the first genetically engineered vaccine to win Food and Drug Administration approval for use in humans...
...Chiron appears to have done it again. Capping more than five years of intensive detective work, the company announced last week that it had isolated and cloned proteins from the last major hepatitis virus to elude detection: a blood-borne infectious agent that is known as hepatitis non-A, non-B. The virus strikes about 5% of the 4 million Americans who undergo blood transfusions each year, and it causes a range of symptoms from fatigue to chronic liver disease...
...Chiron's discovery, if verified, could be both a medical breakthrough and an economic boon, because it could lead to a simple laboratory test for the presence of the virus. The company thinks such a test, which would have a ready market at blood banks and hospitals, could generate sales of up to $90 million a year in the U.S. alone. Chiron is looking for a vaccine but warns that the search could take several years...
...last week the price stood at 37 3/4. A domino effect also knocked down the stocks of rival biotech firms, some of which are developing drugs similar to t-PA. Such futuristic- sounding companies as Amgen, Biogen, Centocor, Cetus and Chiron saw their shares drop anywhere from 7% to 11% before recovering some of those losses...
Merck, which funded much of the research and has licensed Chiron's technology for the new product, will sell the hepatitis B vaccine under the name Recombivax HB. The vaccine will join a handful of pioneering products of recombinant DNA, or gene splicing, that have reached the market, including human insulin (1982), human growth hormone (1985) and alpha interferon (1986). The FDA approval of Recombivax HB is expected to give a big boost to the public image of an industry that has been more promising than profitable. Said Chiron President Edward Penhoet: "We think this vaccine will usher...