Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (NYSE:EBS) announced today that it has received a contract from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for over $24.3 million to fund the further development of Emergent’s anthrax monoclonal antibody AVP-21D9. This contract will be jointly administered through the Office of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The four year contract provides funding for scale-up of the manufacturing process, for non-clinical studies, and for a Phase I clinical trial. Emergent anticipates that it will receive approximately $20 million over the first two contract years in support of the scale-up of the manufacturing process and the completion of a Phase I clinical trial. Emergent expects to focus on completing certain non-clinical studies during the final two years of the contract.

“We are very pleased to have secured this important contract with HHS. The AVP-21D9 antibody is a fully human antibody that has demonstrated very high affinity to the anthrax toxin in animal studies and shows great promise as an effective post-exposure anthrax therapeutic. We believe this funding from HHS underscores the U.S. government’s commitment to a multi-prong approach in responding to the threat of bioterrorism in our country. We are certainly encouraged that we were able to secure this contract so soon following our acquisition of AVP-21D9 earlier this year,” said Stephen Lockhart, senior vice president, product development of Emergent BioSolutions.

The continued development of this anthrax monoclonal antibody candidate further solidifies Emergent’s franchise of anthrax countermeasures, which now includes:

BioThrax^® – the only FDA-approved vaccine to prevent anthrax.