Over the last few years, the challenges of vaccine development have created perhaps an unprecedented level of scrutiny, not just within the biotech industry, but also in the consciousness of the general public. This was certainly the case during the recent H1N1 influenza outbreak. The demand to know when a vaccine would be available, and if producers could meet the global demands consistently made front page news. The challenge of rapid and scalable manufacture is of course nothing new in biopharmaceutical development and in many respects, monoclonal antibodies are leading the way as the industry moves towards the required level of industrialization.