Bioterror: VaxGen stops work on anthrax vaccine; smallpox contract awarded

A few recent items about efforts to develop vaccines against possible agents of bioterrorism:

-- We've been following the saga of the VaxGen anthrax vaccine contract since beginning this site in March 2006 (complete coverage here). When we last checked in -- in January -- the news was that HHS had finally canceled the $877.5 million contract awarded to VaxGen as part of Project Bioshield. Just before Memorial Day weekend (likely deliberately timed to reduce media coverage), VaxGen announced that is was ceasing further development of the vaccine, an all-but-inevitable development without new funding.

Here's the VaxGen press release and a story from CIDRAP News. The press release notes that VaxGen will be laying off 20 employees as a result of this decision, which, amazingly, accounts for 25% of its workforce. There's little doubt that this point will be noted by those who had long criticized the decision to award such a significant contract to a very small, unproven player in vaccine development.

Even more bad news is highlighted in this CQ.com story, which notes the new hurdles VaxGen faces is selling its anthrax vaccine technology developed thus far.

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-- Speaking of CQ.com and bioterror vaccines, following up on this previous post, the anticipated agreement between HHS and Bavarian Nordic for a second-generation smallpox vaccine was completed last week. Here's the HHS press release and an AP story, courtesy of CBSNews.com.