Following all regulatory approvals, French drugmaker Sanofi has completed the acquisition of Protein Sciences, a US vaccines biotech based in Meriden, Connecticut. The deal enhances the presence of Sanofi’s global vaccines global business unit Sanofi Pasteur in the influenza vaccine market.

Protein Science’s Flublok is the only recombinant protein-based flu vaccine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In October 2016, the US company received FDA approval for the quadrivalent version of the Flublok vaccine, indicated for adults 18 years and older.

Daniel Loew, Sanofi’s executive vice president and head of Sanofi Pasteur, said the acquisition fits with his company’s strategic initiative to explore non-egg-based influenza vaccine manufacturing technologies with an eye to expanding its presence in the respiratory vaccine market. It also builds on the recently announced collaboration on an investigational respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) monoclonal antibody, he said.

According to Loew, a recent clinical study in adults 50 years of age and older showed that individuals who received Flublok Quadrivalent vaccine were significantly less likely to get influenza than those who received a quadrivalent inactivated influenza vaccine.