Link:  Pharm/Biotech Resources

Title:  Freeze-dried hepatitis A attenuated live vaccine and its stabilizer

United States Patent:  6,884,422

Issued:  April 26, 2005

Inventors:  Liu; Jingye (Changchun, CN); Wang; Pengfu (Changchun, CN); Li; Guangpu (Changchun, CN); Xie; Baosheng (Changchun, CN); Song; Zongming (Changchun, CN); Li; Shuyan (Changchun, CN); Liu; Jing (Changchun, CN); Yu; Ying (Changchun, CN); Zhang; Xizhen Guangpu (Changchun, CN); Liang; Ben (Changchun, CN); Liu; Lingjiu (Changchun, CN); Wang; Wei (Changchun, CN); Zhang; Ling (Changchun, CN); Xue; Yong (Changchun, CN); Li; Jing (Changchun, CN); Li; Yuhong (Changchun, CN); Lin; Hui (Changchun, CN); Wan; Zongju (Changchun, CN)

Assignee:  Changchun Institute of Biological Products, Ministry of Public Health (CN)

Appl. No.:  807783

Filed:  October 10, 1999

PCT Filed:  October 10, 1999

PCT NO:  PCTCN99/00157

371 Date:  June 1, 2001

102(e) Date:  June 1, 2001

PCT PUB.NO.:  WO0023104

PCT PUB. Date:  April 27, 2000

Abstract

The present invention relates to hepatitis A vaccine, especially to a lyophilized attenuated hepatitis A vaccine which can be stored at ambient temperature for extended periods of time, and to a method for producing the same. The present invention further relates to a stabilizer for lyophilized live vaccine and its use in improving thermostability of lyophilized live vaccine during lyophilization processing and storage period after lyophilization.

Description of the Invention

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to attenuated hepatitis A vaccine, and more particularly to a stabilized lyophilized live hepatitis. A vaccine formulation which can be preserved at ambient temperature for extended periods of time, to eliminate the pressures from transportation, storage and usage of the vaccine without loss of infectivity titers of the vaccine. The present invention further relates to a stabilizer for live lyophilized vaccine and its use in producing stabilized lyophilized live vaccine formulations.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Hepatitis A is a worldwide distributive acute disease caused by infection with hepatitis A virus (HAV) which is a picornavirus closely related to the poliovirus. Infection is spread by the fecal/oral route and consequently the disease in endemic in areas where hygiene and sanitation standards are lower. Recent reports on epidemical survey show that in developing countries including China, there are as many as 4 million hepatitis A cases per year. There is frequently large-scale outbreak and rapid spread in certain regions with poor social and economic status, especially after various disasters. In these countries or regions, as the high incidence of hepatitis A, some serious public health and social problems have been encountered. On the other hand, in the United States and other developed countries, hepatitis A accounting for approximately 150,000 cases, that is approximately 25% of all clinical hepatitis cases.

Therefore, to successfully immunize against hepatitis A in developing countries as well as in developed countries, it is necessary to vaccinate the entire people, especially entire pediatric populations. So there will be an increasing need for hepatitis A vaccine.

An effective vaccine would be useful for active immunization of populations at high risk. Generally, there are four types of vaccines used for inducing a specific neutralizing antibody against challenge with virus or bacteria: live vaccine, inactivated vaccine, subunit vaccine (component vaccine), and recombinant vaccine. In these vaccines, the live attenuated vaccine could elicit a stronger protective response than others, and could have a significant impact on the eradication of the diseases.

U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,532,215 and 4,636,469 described, respectively a strain of wild-type HAV, designated HM-175, initially isolated from the faces of a patient, and adapted to passage in vitro in African green monkey kidney culture cell and methods for obtaining a vaccine by serial passaging. Also, CN Patent Nos. 89106580.6 and 92114998 disclose the preparation of attenuated HAV designated H₂-and L-A-I, respectively.

With regard to live attenuated hepatitis A vaccine, it is worth mentioning the live HAV vaccine based on strain CR*326F (Merck & Co. Inc.), which is under preclinical trials, and the vaccines based on strain H₂ and L-A-I, respectively, have been licensed for practical use and industrial-scale production in China. Clinical serological studies demonstrated that these live attenuated hepatitis A vaccines, especially the vaccine prepared from L-A-I strain of HAV (produced by Changchun Institute of Biological Products Ministry of Public Health, Changchun, China) evoked high titers of antibody response, in most volunteers receiving the vaccine, after only one dose and no systemic complains were present immediately after vaccination or during long-term follow-up (see CN Patent No. 92214998).

However, all of the live hepatitis A vaccines used so far are in the form of aqueous suspensions. One of the main disadvantages of live attenuated vaccine is having unsatisfactory theremo-stability, even in the situation of lyophilization at ambient temperature, hence it must be stored and transported in a frozen state and used soon after thawing to insure effective vaccination. Hepatitis A virus, as well as measles virus is unsatisfactory in both storage stability and heat resistance. For example, live attenuated hepatitis A virus survives only for about 7 days at a temperature of 2-8° C., and storage-term duration is only about 3-6 months. Therefore, transportation and storage of these vaccine preparations must be completed at a reduced temperature (e.g., -20° C. or lower), referred to as "cold chain." As a direct result, the increases in production and transportation cost and user's expense are unavoidable, especially in developing countries and tropical and semitropical areas. This cost would be an obstacle to implementation of the worldwide Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) founded by World Health Organization (WHO).

For the reasons as described above, eradication of hepatitis A will depend on the ability to provide hepatitis. A vaccine formulations having improved thermo-stability. Accordingly, there remains a distinct need in the art for live hepatitis vaccine formulations with enhanced storage stability and heat resistance during and after lyophilization.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the problems mentioned above, the present inventors have performed intensive experiments during their production practices to overcome these problems and to provide a lyophilized live hepatitis A vaccine with increased thermo-resistance and storage stability. The present inventors have surprisingly found that when a stabilizer solution is added to the vaccine stock suspension prepared by a disclosed method (for example as described in CN Patent No. 92114998), and lyophilized the hepatitis A vaccine formulation comprising, as a virus component, an attenuated live hepatitis A virus and a stabilizer, the storage-term of the hepatitis A virus containing lyophilized vaccine is extended 3 times longer than non-treated stock viral suspension. Therefore, the "cold chain" pressure and user's expense is described greatly thereby increasing the ability for low-cost, widespread use.

It is one object of the present invention to provide a stabilized lyophilized hepatitis A live vaccine formulation comprising a prophylactically effective viral titers of live attenuated hepatitis A virus and a stabilizer which can be preserved at ambient temperature for extended periods of time, so that the "cold chain" pressures from transportation, storage and usage of the vaccine can be reduced or eliminated without loss of infective titers of the vaccine, thereby greatly decreasing the expense and relevant cost to ensure effective widespread vaccination against hepatitis A.

In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, said stock suspension of live attenuated hepatitis A virus is prepared by disclosed method for the wild-type HAV, stain L-A-I.

In a another preferred embodiment of the present invention, said stabilizer for lyophilized live hepatitis A virus is composed of gelatin, trehalose, one or two amino acid selected from the group consisting of glutamic acid, aspartic acid, arginine, lysine or alkali metal salts thereof, ascorbic acid, urea, mannitol or sorbitol or both of them, and inositol.

According to a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, the stabilizer for lyophilized live virus vaccine contains human serum albumin.

In a further preferred embodiment of the stabilizer according to the present invention, the stabilizer for the lyophilized live virus is essentially composed of from 0 to 20 grams per liter of human serum albumin, from 5 to 10 grams per liter of gelatin, from 50 to 100 grams per liter of trehalose, about 7.5 to 15 grams per liter of sodium glutamate, from 0.5 to 5.5 grams per liter of ascorbic acid, from 5 to 28 grams per liter of urea, from 2 to 10 grams per liter of mannitol or sorbitol or a mixture, and from 4 to 10 grams per liter of inositol.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of preparing stabilized lyophilized live hepatitis A vaccine formulation as above, comprising:

According to a preferred embodiment of this object of the invention, the lyophilization step comprises precooling the vaccine formulation to about -20 to -50° C. over about 3 to 6 hours, and then drying the live vaccine formulation by gradually increasing the temperature from -38 to 35° C. in a lyophilizer.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a stabilizer for lyophilized live virus, wherein said stabilizer is essentially composed of gelatin, trehalose, one or two amino acid selected from the group consisting of glutamic acid, aspartic acid, arginine, lysine or alkali metal salts thereof, ascorbic acid, urea, mannitol or sorbitol or both of them, and inositol.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, said stabilizer is essentially composed of from 0 to 20 grams per titer of human serum albumin, from 5 to 10 grams per liter of gelatin, from 50 to 100 grams per liter of trehalose, from 7.5 to 15 grams per liter of sodium glutamate, from 0.5 to 5.5 grams per liter of ascorbic acid, from 5 to 28 grams per liter of urea, from 2 to 10 grams per liter of mannitol or sorbital or a mixture of them, and from 4 to 10 gram per liter of inositol.

According to a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, the stabilizer for lyophilized live virus vaccine can contain human serum albumin.

According to preferred embodiment of the present invention, said stabilizer is not only suitable for stabilizing lyophilized hepatitis A live virus, but also used for stabilizing viruses selected from the group consisting of the genus Enterovirus, the genes Paramyxovirus, the genus Arbovirus, and the genus Herpesvirus against heat inactivation during the period of lyophilization and the period of storage and transportation post-lyophilization to ensure thermo-stability of the lyophilized live vaccine thereby to improve vaccination efficacy for susceptible populations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related to lyophilized live vaccine formulations having a increased thermo-stability. Essentially, the vaccine formulations of the present invention are mixtures of virus component and stabilizer components, wherein the virus component comprises hepatitis A virus or at least one member selected from the genuses Enterovirus, Pavamyxovirus, Arbovirus and Herpesvirus, and the stabilizer components comprise gelatin, trehalose, one or two amino acids selected from the group consisting of glutamic acid, aspartic acid, arginine, lysine or alkali metal salts thereof, ascorbic acid, urea, mannitol and/or sorbitol, and inositol. The vaccine stabilizer according to the present invention can contain human serum albumin (HSA) to prevent any undesirable enzymolysis of the virus. Upon mixing the two components in a suitable ratio, the result is a virus formulation which contains from about 0 to 20 grams per liter of HSA, from 5 to 10 grams per liter of gelatin, from 50 to 100 grams per liter of trehalose, from 7.5 to 15 grams per liter of amino acid or alkali metal salts thereof, from 0.5 to 5.5 grams per liter of ascorbic acid, from 5 to 28 grams per liter of urea, about 2 to 10 grams per liter of mannitol or sorbitol or a mixture of them, and from 4 to 10 grams per liter of inositol.

With respect to a attenuated hepatitis A virus, for example, the HAV stock suspension used for the purpose of the present invention could be prepared from the wide-type strain L-A-I by the HAV cell-culture adaption and attenuation method described in CN Patent No. 92114998. Briefly, the method comprises cultivating human diploid fibroblast cells in a suitable nutrient medium, e.g., Eagle's minimal essential medium (MEM), containing 10-15% fetal calf serum (FCS) in a roller bottle at 37° C. for 5-8 days. When confluent cell monolayers are formed, the cultured medium is discarded from the culturing vessel and the cells are washed with the same medium or PBS 3 to 5 times. The cells are inoculated with a seed virus of hepatitis A virus L-A-I derived from human feces and purified by the method of described in Example 1 of CN Patent No. 92114998. The cells are then cultivated in nutrient medium at about 34-36° C. for 3 to 4 weeks After completion of cultivation, the nutrient medium is changed to medium 199 with or without phenol red, and cells are cultivated at 34 to 36° C. for a additional 4 to 6 days in a cell roller. After harvesting, the cells are sonificated 3 times, then the cell debris is removed by centrifugation and the resultant supernatant is collected to obtain the desired stock suspension of the virus.

The present invention further provides a stabilizer advantageously used to stabilize a live vaccine, and to protect attenuated live virus against heat-inactivation at ambient temperature for a extended periods of time, essentially composed of human serum albumin and/or gelatin, trehalose, one or two amino acids selected from the group consisting of glutamic acid, aspartic acid, arginine, lysine or alkali metal salts thereof, ascorbic acid, urea, mannitol and/or sorbitol, and inositol. In a particularly preferred embodiment, the present invention provides a stabilizer containing about 0-20 g/L of HSA, about 5-10 g/L of gelatin, about 50-100 g/L of trehalose, about 7.5-15 g/L of sodium glutamate, about 0.5-5.5 g/L of ascorbic acid, about 5-28 g/L of urea, about 2-10 g/L of mannitol and/or sorbitol, and 4-10 g/L of insoitol.

Hepatitis A virus is a small picornavirus with no outer envelope or other lipids. Like the majority of live enteroviruses, hepatitis A virus presented in form of aqueous suspension will rapidly lose the ability of replication, propagation, and/or infectious potency. In the absence of a suitable stabilizer, effective protection against hepatitis A infection is extremely susceptable to heat inactivation of the virus. Thus eradication of hepatitis A and other epidemic caused by infection with virus will depend on the ability to assure cold storage and transportation of virus vaccine. However, according to the present invention, this problem has been circumvented by using vaccine formulations with improved stability characteristics.

Vaccine stabilizers are well known in the art as chemical compounds added to vaccine formulations to enhance vaccine stability during periods of low temperature storage, lyophilization processing, or storage post-lyophilization. As described above, the stabilizer aqueous solutions used for formulating and stabilizing the live vaccine of the present invention are preferably composed of a high molecular weigh structural additive, a disaccharide, a sugar, alcohol and water. The aqueous solution also includes one or two amino acids and a buffering component. The combination of these components act to preserve the survival and activity of the virus upon freezing and lyophilization and a long storage period subsequent to lyophilization.

It is well known that high molecular weight structural additives aid in preventing viral aggregation during freezing, and provide structural and nutritional support in the lyophilized or dried state. Within the context of the present invention, the preferred high molecular weight structural additives are human serum albumin and/or gelatin. The amino acids, sugars, and alcohols function to further preserve viral infectivity upon cooling and thawing of the aqueous suspension. In addition, these components function to preserve viral infectivity during sublimation of cooled aqueous virus suspensions during lyophilization and in lyophilized state, and contribute some buffering ability. The preferred amino acids are arginine and glutamate, and the preferred sugar alcohols are mannitol, sorbitol and inositol. Trehalose is the preferred disaccharide used in the stabilizer aqueous solution and could be extremely beneficial for stabilizing the protein structure of the virus to increase heat-resistance and for restoring the potency of the virus after dehydration. Urea and ascorbic acid play an important part in stabilizing the hydration state or in maintaining osmotic balance during dehydration period. The buffering component acts to buffer the formulation by maintaining a relatively constant pH which is preferably about 7.0. The preferred buffer is balanced salt solution or PBS used for dissolving the chemical compounds disclosed above.

The components are added in increasing amounts to generate vaccine stabilizer to combine with viral stock suspensions to generate vaccine formulations for lyophilization that have an increased increase in thermo-stability. The preferred component ranges disclosed in this specification allow for generation of vaccine formulations which, among other characteristics, exhibit improved thermo-stability over vaccine formulations known in the art.

The stabilizer of live attenuated vaccine can be formulated by conventional methods, for example, by mixing each of the components in a suitable vessel, except for preheating the mixture solution of trehalose, gelatin, urea, mannitol and/or sorbitol at about 37° C. for 24 to 28 hours before adding HSA thereto. After 0.5 to 2 hours, mixing the resultant stabilizer is mixed with viral stock at about 1:1 (v/v) ratio.

It is noteworthy that the ranges of virus stabilizer and final vaccine formulation are presented on a gram per liter basis of the final vaccine formulation. One of ordinary skill in the art will be well aware that changing volume ratio of stabilizer to vaccine may be applied to practice the claimed invention, which in turn will require changes to the concentration of stabilizer components. Therefore, the invention is not only limited to the specified 1:1 stabilizer/virus combination to generate the final vaccine formulation for lyophilization.

After the vaccine is formulated with stabilizer and viral stock, the resultant aqueous suspension should be dried by lyophilization. Briefly, the lyophilization cycles involves the steps of precooling the aqueous suspension below the gas transition temperature or below the eutectic point temperature (below -30° C.) of the aqueous suspension for 3 to 6 hours, and then removing water from the cooled suspension by sublimation to form a lyophilized virus. Within one preferred embodiment, aliquots of the formulated attenuated live virus are placed into a refrigerated chamber attached to a freeze dryer. A multistep freeze drying procedure is used in lyophilizing the formulated live vaccine. The temperature is then gradually increased from about -38° C. to about 35° C. over a period of 10 to 20 hours.

In order to demonstrate improvement in thermal stability and storage stability of live vaccine, the present invention is exemplified by viral potencies, for example for detecting viral titers pre- and post-lyophilization of hepatitis A vaccine, and to observe the effectiveness of a stabilizer on the storage stability of live vaccine. The results show that the stabilizer included in the vaccine formulations of the present invention at a concentration sufficient to stabilize the live virus vaccine against heat inactivation remarkably improved thermal stability of the virus which had been lyophilized and incubated at 37° C. for one week as measured by the log CCID₅₀, as compared with lyophilized control vaccine formulation which is absent of stabilizer.

Further, the present inventors in a comparison experiment found that a similar result can be observed when a stabilizer solution, which does not contain the human serum albumin (HSA) component, is used for the live virus vaccine if the lyophilization cycle parameters could be suitably adjusted.  

Claim 1 of 10 Claims

1. A stabilized lyophilized hepatitis A live vaccine formulation comprising prophylactically effective titers of live attenuated hepatitis A virus and a stabilizer, wherein said live attenuated hepatitis A virus is prepared from the wild-type HAV, strain L-A-I, and wherein said stabilizer is present in the vaccine formulation at a concentration sufficient to stabilize the hepatitis A virus against heat inactivation.

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