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Smallpox Vaccine Order Could Boost Bioshield
This week’s U.S. order of 20 million doses of a new smallpox vaccine could provide a much-needed boost to the troubled Project Bioshield program, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, June 5). The $5.6 billion program is intended to fund production of new countermeasures against WMD agents. Since its inception in 2004, it has faced schedule breakdowns and a host of other problems, including cancellation of the flagship $877.5 million project to develop a new anthrax vaccine (see GSN, April 19). The Health and Human Services Department has sought fixes for the problems. It detailed its priorities under a new program plan and has plans to assign contracts for development of a new anthrax vaccine and a radiation sickness treatment, the Post reported (see GSN, March 8). “We’re applying all the lessons that we have learned in the … history of Project Bioshield, the lessons from VaxGen,” the company once tagged to produce the anthrax vaccine, said Carol Linden, acting chief of the department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (see GSN, April 27). One fix made to Bioshield will be tested for the first time under the smallpox vaccine contract with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic. The company under 2006 legislation is eligible to receive up to $150 million in interim funding while it readies the vaccine. Previously, companies could only receive payment upon delivery of the drug, leaving them to fund the expensive development process. “We see it as a partnership,” said Bavarian Nordic chief scientific officer Paul Chaplin, whose firm ultimately could receive $1.6 billion for 80 million doses of the new vaccine. “In a partnership there has to be an investment on both sides for it to be a success” (
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