Dynavax Technologies Corp., a biopharmaceutical company specializing in treatments for allergies, infectious and chronic inflammatory diseases, said Monday preclinical data indicates its flu vaccine confers immunity to "widely divergent" strains of the flu and has potential to be a universal flu vaccine.

Preclinical tests on mice and primates showed that the co-administration of Dynavax's flu vaccine with a standard vaccine enhances the immune response to the standard vaccine, and may allow reduction of dosage while inducing comparable protective immunity, the company said. The tests showed the effect can last for more than one year, according to the company.

Dynavax is attempting to develop a flu vaccine with greater scope than the current development-stage pandemic vaccines and standard seasonal flu vaccines. In 2003, the company received a $3 million grant over three-and-a-half years to fund research and development of a pandemic flu vaccine under a cooperative research program administered by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

Dynavax's vaccine is based on the company's proprietary TLR-9 agonist-based immunostimulatory sequence technology.

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