Chiron Renames Chiron Biocine Chiron Vaccines.

EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 16, 1996--Chiron Corp. (NASDAQ: CHIR) announced today that it has formally changed the name of the company's 10-year-old vaccine business unit from Chiron Biocine to Chiron Vaccines.

Chiron is launching the new name during the 36th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), which is meeting this week in New Orleans.

"The new name -- Chiron Vaccines -- more accurately defines the scope of this business unit's marketed products and research programs and also draws more upon the value of the `Chiron' name," said Dino Dina, president of Chiron Vaccines.

"The name aligns the diverse and expanding portfolio of international businesses and relationships within the Chiron Vaccines division, while emphasizing its role within the Chiron business portfolio.

"This has been a significant year of integration for Chiron Vaccines with the formation of our new joint venture Chiron Behring in Germany and the strengthening of our vaccine business in Italy and emerging international markets. We feel the name change reinforces our goal of a single global business."

Chiron Vaccines, with primary operations in Emeryville; Siena, Italy; and Marburg, Germany, is researching and developing novel and improved vaccines for bacterial and infectious diseases, as well as new adjuvants to boost the immunization power of candidate and existing vaccines. The company has current research and clinical development programs for a broad range of pediatric and adult vaccines.

During the ICAAC meeting, Chiron and its collaborators are presenting results from clinical and pre-clinical studies involving novel vaccines that contain the proprietary adjuvant MF59 developed by Chiron Vaccines. The MF59 adjuvant, used in clinical trials for influenza, cytomegalovirus, HIV, and genital herpes vaccines, has been shown to enhance the immunogenicity of subunit vaccines, while maintaining a clinically acceptable safety profile.

Currently aluminum salts, or alum, is the only adjuvant in licensed vaccines; this adjuvant, developed about 40 years ago, has shown only limited usefulness in amplifying the immunogenicity of recombinant subunit vaccines.

Other candidate vaccines in clinical or pre-clinical trials include a diphtheria/tetanus/recombinant acellular pertussis (DTaP) and adult pertussis vaccines, as well as vaccines to prevent meningococcus, genital herpes, HIV, Hepatitis C, rabies, and Helicobacter pylori infection.

Among recently published results for products in development, the safety and efficacy of the recombinant DTaP produced by Chiron was compared with a whole-cell DTP vaccine as well as another DTaP in a study involving more than 14,000 infants.

According to the study findings that were published in February 1996 in the New England Journal of Medicine, Chiron Vaccines' recombinant DTaP was associated with fewer adverse events and produced a greater immune response against pertussis toxin than the other two vaccines evaluated in this trial.

In addition, results from studies of the Chiron influenza vaccine with the MF59 adjuvant versus a commercially available influenza vaccine were reported last year at ICAAC. In the study, which involved more than 800 participants who were age 65 or older, vaccine with the MF59 adjuvant was shown to be well tolerated, highly immunogenic, and associated with reduced mortality during flu season in this high risk population.

Chiron Corp., headquartered in Emeryville, near San Francisco, is a science-driven healthcare company that combines diagnostic, vaccine, and therapeutic strategies for controlling disease.

Chiron participates in four global markets: diagnostics, including immunodiagnostics, critical care diagnostics, and new quantitative probe tests; ophthalmic surgical products for the correction of vision; pediatric and adult vaccines; and therapeutics, with an emphasis on oncology and infectious diseases.

Chiron also has research programs underway in gene therapy and gene transfer, combinatorial chemistry, cardiovascular disease, and critical care. In addition to Chiron Vaccines, the company's other business units are Chiron Diagnostics, Chiron Therapeutics, Chiron Vision, and Chiron Technologies.

CONTACT: Chiron Corp., Emeryville

Larry Kurtz, 510/601-2476