Avecia wins major US anthrax vaccines contract

Avecia has been awarded a contract worth US$71.3m (€61.0m) to make 3m doses of a new type of recombinant anthrax vaccine for the US Government's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Scheduled for completion by late 2006, the contract will continue anthrax vaccine development efforts for NIAID that were initiated with a contract awarded in 2002 to produce 2,000 doses of the new vaccine for clinical trials.

The new vaccine is intended to provide immunity to inhalation anthrax in three or fewer doses and to protect individuals from anthrax spores, even if the vaccine is given shortly after exposure. It is planned to replace a current vaccine that requires six injections over 18 months.

The active part of the vaccine is based on the microbially derived, purified protein rPA (recombinant Protective Antigen). It is not based on the anthrax organism itself, or any derivative, and vaccine production poses no risk of exposure to the disease itself.

Production of the new vaccine is based on technology developed by the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), in close co-operation with Avecia, which jointly conceived and engineered the process development and scale-up technologies for large-scale, cost-effective GMP manufacture.

Avecia has also teamed up with Baxter Healthcare Corporation, already a vaccine supplier to the US government, which will provide regulatory expertise, commercial services and support, as well as fill and finishing and final packaging of this vaccine. Production of the vaccine for NIAID will comply fully with the US FDA requirements, the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) and the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

'This contract is a notable success for our biotechnology business and the strong specialised collaboration we have established with Dstl and Baxter,' said Avecia ceo Jeremy Scudamore.