Institute Butantan
is a research center dedicated to Biomedical Research. It has a centenary
tradition in the research on snakes and poisonous animals, and is currently the
leading national producer of anti-venom sera and vaccines. The Institute
integrates research, development and production, in addition to related
cultural activities. The mission of the institution is to investigate, develop
and provide to the Brazilian population biological products important for
Public Health. The products should be of the highest possible quality, obtained
by appropriate technologies and represent a low cost burden, in order to allow
their acquisition by the Public Health System for distribution free of charge
to the whole Brazilian population.
Currently, Butantan provides the Ministry of Health with ~150
million doses of vaccines/year, such as DPT, Hepatitis B, BCG and Rabies and ~1
million doses of hyper immune sera. It has a 3-4 fold surplus production
capacity which can be made internationally available. The Institute has
established a strong R&D program, which allows the development of
technology, translated into dedicated plants, representing a rapidly expanding
program of self-sufficiency. It guides its development effort to produce
efficacious and safe biologicals, using technologies that take into account
affordable costs.
New Developments:
It has developed a new detoxified cellular pertussis vaccine,
which has all its LPS removed, without changing the activity or the cost of the
vaccine. This process results in a large production of MPLA, at very low cost,
which will be used as adjuvant for influenza and other vaccines.
A combined vaccine including this new DTP, Hepatitis B and HIV
will be produced next year. Another combination, BCG-Hepatitis B has gone
through clinical trials and will be available at maternities in 2007; this
combined vaccine will be latter replaced by a recombinant
BCG-Pertussis-Hepatitis B vaccine to be administrated at birth.
An original process has been developed to produce lung
surfactant at a very low cost, which will allow its free distribution to all
public maternities, and will be available for use in low income countries, to
help curtain one million deaths in the first day of life.
Butantan has other biologicals in development that include human
plasma products, anti human thymocytes, monoclonal to control rejection and for
the treatment of tumors.
Butantan maintains genomic and molecular biology labs, which
took part in the establishment of the full Leptospira genome and the
Schistosoma transcriptome, constituting a platform for functional genomics for
the selection of antigens for new vaccines.
Butantan produces rabies vaccine in Vero cells, and is preparing
to produce the pentavalent bovine recombinant rotavirus (developed at NIH), at
a cost bellow two dollars per dose. It maintains, technology cooperation with
private veterinary industry that supplies the vaccines for the production of
poultry, beef and porcine meat.
Butantan's expertise in the development of scale-up technology
and GMP production, and its interest in affordable vaccines, attracted the
partnership of several foreign public supported projects that share with us the
interest in affordable biologicals. Good examples are: a single cellular
pneumococal vaccine which may replace the expensive serotype-specific
conjugated vaccine (project in collaboration with Children's Hospital -
Harvard); and a Nectar vaccine, which reduces the worm burden that affects
school children in developing countries
(in collaboration with the George Washington University and the Sabin Vaccine
Institute).
Address
Instituto Fundaco Butantan,
Av. Vital Brazil 1500,
Sao Paulo 05503-900, Brazil
Telephone : +55 11 3726 3790
Fax : +55 11 3726 1505
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