Emergent receives BARDA contract

HHS's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority awarded Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) a contract worth up to $107 million to develop and obtain regulatory approval for large-scale manufacturing of the company's BioThrax anthrax vaccine. Emergent said it hopes to increase its manufacturing capacity to 26 million doses of BioThrax annually, up from the company's current production of 7-8 million doses. The contract will fund process validation, assay validation, fill/finish, and if required, non-clinical and clinical studies. The funding also would support the submission of an sBLA for BioThrax at the expanded scale. Emergent plans to begin manufacturing consistency lots as early as 4Q11. ...