Novartis has teamed up with J. Craig Venter's newly formed Synthetic Genomic Vaccines Inc. in an effort to accelerate the "production of seasonal and pandemic flu vaccines," the Wall Street Journal reports. According to Fierce Vaccines, the two firms have agreed to collaborate over a period of three years. Synthetic Genomic Vaccines and Novartis aim to "produce synthetic seed viruses, shaving as much as two months off the [standard] development timeline" of five to six months, Fierce Vaccines and the WSJ Health Blog report. Our sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News has more here.