Anthrax

(CIDRAP News) – Two Maryland pharmaceutical companies recently announced that they have submitted proposals to produce and deliver at least 25 million doses of a next-generation anthrax vaccine to the nation's Strategic National Stockpile.

(CIDRAP News) – Emergent BioSolutions Inc. recently announced it had secured two federal grants totaling $4.5 million for development of its botulism and next-generation anthrax vaccine candidates.

Emergent, maker of the nation's only licensed anthrax vaccine, announced the grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in a Jul 24 news release.

(CIDRAP News) – The president of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) complained to Congress last week that the federal program that monitors the air for dangerous pathogens in major cities is a heavy burden on state and local laboratories.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to adopt new automated equipment that will be able to detect dangerous airborne pathogens in major US cities in as little as 4 hours, with a goal of starting deployment in the fall of 2010, DHS officials told Congress last week.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced that it is allocating states and major metropolitan areas $1.1 billion to strengthen public health preparedness and help healthcare facilities respond to emergency events such as an influenza pandemic or terrorist attack.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently offered another antibiotic option for combating inhalational anthrax in children by approving the quinolone drug levofloxacin (Levaquin).

In a letter dated May 5, the FDA endorsed the use of levofloxacin, made by Ortho-McNeil, in children 6 months of age and older. The agency had approved use of the drug for postexposure treatment of anthrax in adults in 2004.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc. announced this week the sale of its experimental anthrax vaccine—which the US government pulled the plug on in 2006—to Emergent BioSolutions, maker of the only US-licensed anthrax vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – Technical barriers have prevented the widespread use of human monoclonal antibodies as potent diagnostic and treatment tools, but scientists now say they have found a way to produce antibodies against seasonal influenza much faster than was previously possible.

(CIDRAP News) – Iomai Corp., a biotechnology company that specializes in needle-free vaccines, announced today that it will receive a grant from the US Department of Defense (DoD) to fund preclinical development of a patch-based anthrax vaccine.

The 1-year grant to Iomai, based in Gaithersburg, Md., will be in the form of a $943,856 cost reimbursement from the US Army Medical Research and Material Command, according to a press release from Iomai.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials recently announced plans to get rid of their last remaining stocks of the decades-old smallpox vaccine Dryvax, as a newer vaccine takes its place in the national stockpile of emergency medical supplies.