Two Maryland biotechnology firms are competing for a contract potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars to supply the United States with a next-generation anthrax vaccine, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 2).
Emergent BioSolutions of Rockville produces the only anthrax vaccine currently licensed for use in the United States. However, it requires six doses over 18 months and has been linked to potentially serious side effects.
The federal government, in preparing for possible acts of biological terrorism, wants a vaccine that requires fewer doses and is stable enough to remain in storage for no less than two years.
The Health and Human Services Department in 2004 gave an $877.5 million contract to California-based VaxGen Inc. production of 75 million doses of a new vaccine. It canceled the contract in 2006 after the company missed multiple deadlines (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2006).
Health and Human Services is now looking for a new supplier for 25 million or more doses of a new treatment that would be placed in the Strategic National Stockpile. Emergent and Annapolis-based PharmAthene remain in the hunt and a final decision could be made in the coming months. The contract awarded to one or more firms could be worth between $350 million and $600 million, according to PharmAthene.
The work is not cheap. PharmAthene in March spent $20 million to buy the biodefense section of a British firm, including its new anthrax vaccine, and in the first half of the year directed $7.1 million toward anthrax vaccine research and development. Emergent this year paid $2 million for the VaxGen vaccine and then used much of $13 million in research and development funding on making it more stable.
Emergent disputes whether its vaccine, BioThrax, produces more side effects than other vaccines. The company is working to shorten the vaccine’s dosage period and to extend the storage life from three to four years, the Post reported. The federal government has recently provided Emergent with contracts for production of another 18.75 million doses of BioThrax and for continued research on a new version of the vaccine.
Meanwhile, PharmAthene last month received $83.9 million for work on its vaccine (Kendra Marr, Washington Post, Oct. 6).