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U.S. Orders New Anthrax Vaccine
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department has awarded a contract worth almost $880 million to the U.S. company VaxGen to produce 75 million doses of a new type of anthrax vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 2). The vaccine is set to be produced using purified recombinant protective antigen, a protein that elicits antibodies to neutralize the toxins produced by the anthrax bacterium, according to a Health and Human Services press release. About 25 million people would be able to be inoculated through the plan, which envisions a three-dose regimen for the new vaccine. The contract is the first to be awarded under Project Bioshield, which was launched this year to help accelerate the development and purchase of new medical countermeasures against WMD agents. “In an exceptionally short period of time, we have dramatically accelerated our research capacity to develop a new medical countermeasure against one of the most deadly agents of bioterrorism,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Without Project Bioshield, we would likely still be years away from a new anthrax vaccine and today’s announcement might never have been possible” (U.S. Health and Human Services Department release, Nov. 4). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must still approve the vaccine, the Associated Press reported. Under the contract, VaxGen will deliver the first 25 million doses in two years beginning in 2006, company President Lance Gordon said. The remaining 50 million doses would be delivered with three years, he said (Diedtra Henderson, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 4). House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) today praised the announcement of the vaccine contract. “This is another milestone in the war on terrorism. By securing the production of anthrax vaccines, we are reducing the biothreat,” Cox said in a press statement. “By using our country’s best intelligence to understand terrorist threats, we can allocate our resources and focus our efforts on the bioterror agents that pose the greatest threat to American lives” (U.S. Select Committee on Homeland Security release, Nov. 5).
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