Merck joins coalition for biosecurity vaccine plant
pharmafile | March 22, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development |Â Â biodefence, vaccinesÂ
Merck & Co will join in a new US project to create a vaccine research and manufacturing facility designed to respond rapidly to emerging biological, chemical and radiological threats.
The objective of the project is to tap into a proposal put forward by US President Barack Obama earlier this year to create a public-private-partnership to provide “a modernised countermeasure production process” to respond quickly to bioterrorism and naturally-occurring infectious diseases such as pandemic influenza.
Merck has become the first drugmaker to join the 21st Century Biodefense (21CB) initiative, which was set up by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) last year.
UPMC’s ultimate aim is to run the centre as a non-profit subsidiary “under the direction of the
federalgovernment”, to produce vaccines and drugs with “limited commercial potential”.
GE Healthcare was the first commercial enterprise to come on board with UPMC, which will host the vaccine production facility.
GE agreed last October to help design the manufacturing unit and processes, with an emphasis on the use of disposable manufacturing technologies, as well as provide production equipment and consumables.
Merck is the first of a planned consortium of pharma manufacturers, and has agreed to provide expertise on drug development and bioprocessing, leadership for the 21CB advisory board and training for staff once the facility goes online.
Other new partners for the project including contract research organisation Battelle, which will contribute preclinical R&D services, and computer giant IBM, which will provide the IT infrastructure.
“With this powerful coalition of partners, we will finally address a critical gap in the nation’s
defenses against bioterrorism and infectious diseases,” said Robert Cindrich, UPMC’s chief legal counsel and chairman of the initiative.
The facility will be able to produce multiple vaccines simultaneously and because of its use of single-use production equipment would be able to switch production quickly from one vaccine to another to respond to a crisis.
UPMC said the initiative would create 1,000 jobs directly and as many as 6,000 indirectly.
Former US President George Bush set the USA’s biosecurity agenda rolling in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, setting up Project BioShield to fund R&D into bioterrorism countermeasures.
However, the scheme has been criticised for a piecemeal and inconsistent approach to funding, as well as a failure to provide ensured markets for new countermeasures and liability protection for vaccine developers.
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