Heptavax-B became the first licensed human vaccine against hepatitis B in 1981.
Heptavax-B was developed from hepatitis B surface antigen obtained from the blood plasma of people carrying the virus. It was licensed in the United States in 1981 and represented the first vaccine specifically designed to prevent a human cancer-causing viral infection through prevention of hepatitis B.
The vaccine’s plasma-derived production raised understandable safety concerns, so later vaccines used recombinant DNA technology rather than human blood products. Recombinant hepatitis B vaccines became the standard and are now given routinely to infants and other groups at risk.
Hepatitis B infection can cause chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. Vaccination does not treat an existing infection, but it prevents new infection and reduces the long-term burden of hepatitis B and its complications.