Battelle Memorial Institute was this week awarded a federal contract for Evaluation and Testing Services (ETS) for Vaccines and other Biologics for Infectious Diseases.
The award will support the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) in development of medical countermeasures against infectious diseases, including vaccines and biologics directed against emerging and biodefense pathogens.
The effort provides for a diverse suite of preclinical, nonclinical, and clinical testing on an as needed basis, rather than for supporting a single candidate through an entire preclinical development pathway.
These services are intended to help a wide variety of investigators obtain critical data needed to acquire additional funding, gain prospective partnerships (either for further development or to support Phase I/II/III trials), fulfill regulatory requirements, and complete studies needed to apply for an IND and enter Phase I/II/III clinical trials.
Sample biodefense related task orders in the contract include conduct of efficacy and immunogenicity testing for an Ebola vaccine; analysis of Phase I/II clinical samples for humoral response to a trivalent influenza vaccine; and development of immunoassays for a plague vaccine candidate composed of two different recombinant plague proteins in an aluminum salt adjuvant.
The contract was solicited under NIAID-DMID-NIHAI2010092.