Avecia wins $50m plague vaccine contract

The company is benefitting from a major drive by the US government to invest in 'biodefense' vaccines and drugs, designed to reduce the public health consequences of a bioterrorism attack.

The contract, awarded by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), calls for the production of 2,000 doses of a new recombinant protein vaccine designed to create an immune response to inhalation or pneumonic plague.

The vaccine has been developed by Avecia Biotechnology in close collaboration with the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which created a pioneering vaccine to protect against both bubonic and pneumonic plague.

Crucially, the plague organism is not used in manufacturing the rYP (recombinant Yersinia pestis​) vaccine so infection cannot be caused by the vaccine production process.

The vaccine's protein technology is similar to the rPA (recombinant Protective Antigen) anti-anthrax vaccine also developed by Dstl and Avecia under a separate NIAID development contract, awarded in September 2003, which could lead to a licensed vaccine by 2006/7.

The contract - scheduled for completion during 2007 - includes an option to conduct Phase II trials.

Bubonic plague - the infamous 'black death' - is an acute infectious fever characterised by chills, prostration, delirium and swollen glands in the armpit or groin. It is usually carried in rodents and transmitted to humans by fleas.

Up to 2,500 cases of the disease are diagnosed each year around the world and can be treated with antibiotics, although it is fatal in 60 per cent of cases if left untreated. But though rare, plague is highly contagious - unlike botulinum and anthrax for example - and has a fearsome reputation which makes it important to have a vaccine not only to limit its spread, but also to quell public anxiety.