Wyeth is also developing another medicine to treat menopause symptoms and a new drug for osteoporosis, a treatment for the side effects of morphine, and an improved version of its Prevnar vaccine, which prevents certain bacterial infections in infants and toddlers.

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Its technology fuses bacterial proteins with part of the flu virus so that the vaccine can be made much more cheaply.

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The inability of the vaccine industry to react more swiftly to a single bad bacterial contamination underscores the need for a better manufacturing process, one using mammalian cell cultures.

FORBES: Broken Eggs