Vaccine Developer Awarded Countermeasures Center Contract

(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. in Rockville, Maryland was awarded a contract from Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to establish a development center for medical countermeasures against public health emergencies. BARDA is a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The eight-year contract is valued at $220 million.

The agreement will create a Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear medical countermeasures. A key part of the program is to provide manufacturing capacity to meet the needs of a domestic influenza pandemic, including construction and workforce training.

Under the agreement, Emergent BioSolutions will find a suitable pandemic influenza vaccine candidate and obtain the intellectual property rights for its development and production. The company will construct any additional facilities for production of the pandemic influenza vaccine, including all of the licenses needed to manufacture the vaccine at a company facility in Baltimore.

The agreement will enable BARDA to call on Emergent BioSolutions to provide development and manufacturing services to other commercial partners under contract for drugs used against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear medical threats other than pandemic flu viruses. The agreement also calls for the company to develop workforce training programs to produce medical countermeasures.

The initial contract runs for eight years, but allows for additional one-year extensions for up to 17 more years.

Read more:

• Contract Awarded to Test Nerve-Agent Protection Drug
• Duke, Novartis to Develop Pandemic Virus Vaccines
• Contracts Awarded for Countermeasure Upgrades
• HHS Review Highlights Role of Business in Medical Countermeasures

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