New Anthrax Vaccine Could Be Years Away

It might be years before the United States receives a new anthrax vaccine, following this week’s cancellation of its contract with California biotechnology firm VaxGen Inc., the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Dec. 20).

The Health and Human Services Department voided the $877.5 million contract for 75 million doses after VaxGen missed its deadline to begin human testing of the vaccine.  The company was already years behind in filling the order.

“The first thing to do, on HHS’s part, is to explain why this failed,” said Tara O’Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  “All of the companies are wondering, does this mean HHS is an unreliable partner, or that this was just kind of bad luck?”

Washington is seeking an alternative to the existing vaccine that requires six shots spread over 18 months.  Efforts to require U.S. troops to be vaccinated have met resistance, including legal challenges from six Defense Department personnel who question the drug’s safety and efficacy (see GSN, Dec. 13).

Health and Human Services hopes to acquire a vaccine that could be more rapidly produced during a crisis and administered more quickly, the Post reported.

The maker of the current treatment, Emergent BioSolutions, is preparing a new version that would require only three injections and could be stored for more than three years.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in this fiscal year is set to spend $14 million on research of anthrax vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tools.

British drug maker Avecia is conducting safety and efficacy tests of its experimental anthrax vaccine and has collected early information from human trials (see GSN, Sept. 28).  “So far the vaccine has been demonstrated to be safe,” said Michael Kurilla, director of the Biodefense Research Affairs Office at the National Institutes of Health.  However, human trials are not yet concluded and the results must be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.  The schedule for distribution of the vaccine remains unknown.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases gave $4 million to Avecia in June for research on an anthrax vaccine that could be stored without refrigeration.  “That is much earlier in the pipeline,” Kurilla said.

The National Institutes of Health next year plans to award one or multiple contracts for work on an anthrax vaccine that would not require refrigeration, needles or as many doses as the existing version (Renae Merle, Washington Post, Dec. 21).

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