A United States pharmaceutical company says it has completed its first commercial batches of swine flu vaccine and is discussing distribution plans with health authorities.
Baxter International has supply contracts with five countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland and New Zealand.
The vaccine is made using a cell culture process, which is designed to be faster than traditional vaccine production methods, where virus samples must be put into specially raised chicken eggs to grow.
Several other companies are using conventional methods to develop H1N1 vaccines.
The Baxter vaccine will be sold under the brand name Celvapan.
