Two rival biotech companies have been simultaneously awarded governmental contract to develop anthrax vaccine, which needs to be more effective and safe than the existing one. The two companies are Emergent and PharmAthene
Currently Emergent supplies government with 18.75 million doses of anthrax vaccine called BioThrax, which comes under a $448 million contract. However, the current vaccine has several disadvantages: it requires a cold place to be stored (refrigerator) and 6 injections within a 18 month period, besides, it was recently associated with serious adverse side effects.
The contracts are offered by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Emergent received a $29.7 million contract to develop a recombinant version of BioThrax, which is supposed to be more effective and safe, but will still require refrigeration. PharmAthene received a $83.9 million contract to develop a genetically modified anthrax vaccine, which is supposed to be much faster and will not require refrigeration.
One of the companies, the one that will win the contract, will supply the government with 25 million doses of anthrax vaccine.
Two years ago a similar contract was offered to VaxGen, and the company later failed to develop a working vaccine. Now the government decided to award two biotech companies simultaneously to drive the companies into competition, which will indeed lead to better results. Besides, the government wants to have a backup version of the vaccine and to make sure that there will be at least one effective vaccine.
By Ruzanna Haroutiunyan for eMaxHealth.
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