Emergent Biosolutions announced today that, after completion of an inter-agency In Process Review, the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority (BARDA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has exercised a contract option to further advance the development of the company’s novel recombinant protective antigen (rPA) anthrax vaccine candidate, PreviThrax.

The option award is part of the company’s rPA development contract with BARDA executed in October 2010. The vaccine candidate is based on pioneering work of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and has previously received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Since initiating the contract in 2010, Emergent has made significant progress in the development of PreviThrax including: increasing the manufacturing yield by over fourfold; transferring the manufacturing process to single-use bioreactors for flexible manufacturing; demonstrating stability for both liquid and dry formulations; and demonstrating stability at higher tempuratures.

Source: Emergent Biosolutions