Astellas and Takeda continue to advance vaccine strategies

Japanese manufacturers Astellas and Takeda continued to advance their vaccine plans this week. Astellas, having founded a vaccine startup last week, presented summary results from Phase III trials of the Protein Sciences flu shot it plans to commercialize in Japan. Separately, Takeda signed a deal to begin selling a freeze-dried live attenuated chickenpox vaccine in Japan. Astellas' release (PDF) | Takeda's release