The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recently offered a positive opinion for Seqirus’s quadrivalent influenza vaccine (QIVc) in people aged nine years and older.

Subject to approval by the European Commission, Seqirus plans to launch the vaccine as Flucelvax Tetra in Europe in time for the 2019/20 season.

QIVc, licensed in the US in 2016, protects against four influenza strains: A(H3N2), A(H1N1) and two B strains.

Seqirus produces QIVc using cell-based technology which, the company says, means QIVc “avoids egg-adapted changes associated with traditional manufacturing methods” and “may therefore offer a closer match to circulating viruses than traditional egg-based influenza vaccines, with the potential to provide better protection in some seasons”.