Elusys scores HHS contract for anthrax drug

PINE BROOK, N.J. Elusys Therapeutics Inc. has received a $143 million federal contract to develop a drug to treat inhaled anthrax poisoning. Elusys will use the money to scale up manufacturing and chemical and human studies of its drug Anthim, a protein-based treatment for inhaled anthrax.

Elusys has competition in the form of Human Genome Sciences Inc., which also has a drug — raxibacumab, formerly called ABThrax — to treat inhaled anthrax, currently under development.

But, last month Human Genome Sciences hit a bit of a roadblock when the Food and Drug Administration balked on approving raxibacumab; earlier this year, the company had logged its first sale in the form of its $300 million Health and Human Services contract for raxibacumab, amounting to several thousand doses of the drug for the national stockpile. Human Genome Science is working to address the FDA’s questions, which centered around raxibacumab’s efficacy relative to other treatments already on the market.

Elusys’ Anthim also has yet to receive FDA approval.