MedImmune announced that it has licensed its reverse genetics technology to Omninvest, a Hungarian research and manufacturing company, to support the development and construction of new vaccine strains to produce non-live human influenza vaccines.

Reverse genetics is a method by which viruses such as influenza can be generated from segments of DNA.

For potential pandemic influenza vaccines, reverse genetics is useful technology because the process does not require manufacturers to work directly with potentially highly infectious pandemic strains, such as H5N1, only with segments of the virus's genome.

This is the second agreement of this kind that MedImmune signs in the third quarter of 2008. No financial details of the agreement were reported.