Multiflu vaccine BiondVax gains

BiondVax Pharmaceuticals' share gained 2.5% on Monday on NIS 77 million in trade; only five companies in the TA-25 Index had higher turnover that day. Since the beginning of 2009, BiondVax has skyrocketed 2,400%, and it is nearing the price at which it floated in June 2007.

The share's popularity can be attributed to the spread of H1N1 (swine flu). BiondVax develops protein-based flu vaccines, and is therefore considered an attractive investment opportunity.

The company's main goal is to develop a universal vaccine against influenza viruses that would provide multiseason protection against many strains of flu. The vaccine would contain several different epitopes derived from virus proteins, which would stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies and protect a person exposed to a virus from becoming ill. By using multiple epitopes, the vaccine would hopefully overcome the main problem in protecting against flu viruses: rapid changes in the virus strains. The multi-flu vaccine is one of the elixirs of life sought by the pharmaceutical world, on a par with drugs against the most lethal forms of cancer.

On Tuesday, BiondVax announced that the Clinical Trials Safety Commission for Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials has approved the continuation of its trial as planned, after receiving data from the six participants who received the highest dosage of the vaccine. BiondVax CEO Ron Babecoff estimates that the vaccine will be ready to market commercially in three to five years. And company sources said that given the panic over the spread of swine flu, regulators might speed up the vaccine's trial and review process.

Nevertheless, BiondVax is not the only player in the flu vaccine market. Bigger pharmaceutical companies are way ahead of it.

British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline, for example, reported Tuesday that it had received orders for an additional 96 million doses of H1N1 vaccine in the past two weeks, from nine different governments, increasing total orders to 291 million. These orders have boosted its share price by 14% since mid-July. Investing in GSK, which is trading at a market cap of $101 billion, is not a first choice for fans of Israeli biomedical shares. But it might protect investors from a 50% crash in a share's price over a two-month period, as happened to BiondVax in November 2007, when the company decided to halt development of the first generation of its vaccine.