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The Emeryville, California, company predicts sales of the drug will bring it $100 million this year.

The approval, along with a positive forecast from a Wall Street securities analyst, helped boost the stock by 12 points to 62 on Wednesday. Dennis Harp, an analyst at Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, said he was giving Chiron’s stock a "buy" rating and a 12-month target price of $74.

Harp also predicted that Chiron’s earnings per share would grow 25 percent annually in "the foreseeable future" due to the biotech company's patent holdings, promising blood-testing franchise, and the approval of the vaccine.

Chiron also holds several patents on nucleic acid tests for detecting viruses in blood supplies -– possibly making them the leader in a market with a worldwide potential of up to $1.2 billion, according to Harp.

Chiron is looking into prospects of marketing the meningitis vaccine in the U.S. and other countries, said Andria Langenberg, senior director of clinical research and development at Chiron.

Individuals above 12 months old are now eligible to receive the vaccine as part of the U.K.’s campaign against meningococcal C disease. Chiron (CHIR) hopes the drug will soon be approved for infants under one year or age as well.

The Chiron vaccine, unlike most vaccines currently used for meningitis, is effective on the immune systems of infants and children under two against the bacterium that causes the disease.

Studies have shown that the drug is well tolerated and stimulates long-lasting immunity, the company said.

American Home Products developed the only other vaccine effective on children under two called Meningitec, which was approved in the U.K. in October 1999.

On Tuesday the company also announced it had been granted two new U.S. patents on gene delivery vectors, called alphavirus replicons, that are being used to develop vaccines targeting hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The company said the alphavirus replicons are used to deliver genes that have been shown to stimulate an immune response to protect an individual against future infection by the disease-causing agent.