was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It was the headquarters of a multinational biotechnology firm based in s,
Vaccine s and
Blood Test ing.
Chiron was founded in 1981 by professors William Rutter, Edward Penhoet, and Pablo Valenzuela.
In
1992 , the company's first product,
Proleukin , was approved in United States for the treatment of
Metastatic Kidney Cancer . This was followed a year later by
Betaseron , the first treatment for relapsing-remitting
Multiple Sclerosis .
Regranex , a
Topical treatment for
Diabetic foot ulcers, was launched in
1997 in partnership with
Johnson & Johnson . The most recent new pharmaceutical launch was that of
Tobi in
2001 , the first inhaled
Antibiotic approved for treating lung infections in
Cystic Fibrosis patients,
Having launched its first
Vaccine product,
Fluad , an
Adjuvant ed
Influenza vaccine, in 1996, the vaccine line was expanded significantly in
1998 with the acquisition of the European vaccine businesses of
Behring (Germany) and
Sclavo (Italy). This was followed in
2003 by the acquisition of
PowderJect , the UK-based vaccines company, making Chiron the second-largest flu vaccines provider and the fifth-largest vaccines business in the world.
In
1998 , Chiron's
Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT) blood-testing business was launched in a cooperation with
Gen-Probe , followed a year later by the launch of the
Procleix system, which detects viral
RNA and
DNA in donated
Blood and
Plasma during the very early stages of
Infection , when those infectious agents are present but cannot be detected by immunodiagnostic tests.
On
August 27 , 2003 two bombs exploded at Chiron's headquarters in Emeryville, California. A group calling itself
Revolutionary Cells of the
Animal Liberation Brigade E-mail ed a statement to reporters taking credit for the bombing.
In
2004 , Chiron attracted unwelcome
Media coverage after the
UK government suspended its licence for manufacturing
Fluvirin , an
Influenza virus vaccine, at its plant in
Liverpool . This action left the
United States government short of the vaccine. It later emerged that the
FDA may have been aware of the problem nine months earlier, but a miscommunication between the company and the FDA left the problem unsolved until the
MHPRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency), the British equivalent of the FDA stepped in and suspended Chiron's licence.
