Emergent to develop anthrax vaccine on HHS' behalf

WASHINGTON Emergent BioSolutions has landed a $51 million contract from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop a new anthrax vaccine.

In the first two years of the contract, Emergent will develop the final vaccine formulation and test its stability. HHS said it can extend the contract annually for up to three years to support scale-up and optimization for large-scale manufacturing, as well as additional animal studies needed to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval of the vaccine.

If the government extends the contract for all three years, the total five-year contract value could be $186.6 million.