October 20, 2001
A Scramble to Counter Any Threat of Smallpox
By MELODY PETERSEN and KEITH BRADSHER
fter announcing plans to stockpile 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, the government must now determine where it can quickly get so much.
Under an existing contract, a small Massachusetts biotechnology company called Acambis (news/quote), which has about 150 employees, will produce 54 million doses. Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, said this week that Acambis had agreed to speed production so that those doses could be delivered by next summer.
Mr. Thompson also said he was negotiating with Acambis and three other companies to make the remaining doses, which would be enough for every American in case terrorists tried to use smallpox in a biological attack. The others include Merck & Company (news/quote), one of the largest vaccine makers, and Baxter International (news/quote), which sells some vaccines in Europe. The fourth company was not identified.
"Beginning next week, we'll have meetings with interested pharmaceutical companies," said Anthony T. Jewell, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. "We'll be sharing information and determining who best can do this for us. This is in the early stages, but we want to do this as quickly and efficiently as possible, while ensuring all safety measures are in place."
The government has about 15 million doses of smallpox vaccine in storage, and it is looking at whether they could be diluted to cover five times that number of people. Those doses were manufactured almost two decades ago, using a technology that would probably not be used today. The method involves infecting calves with vaccinia, a virus related to smallpox.
Acambis is developing a similar vaccine, with more modern methods.
Some vaccine experts questioned yesterday whether the government could count entirely on small companies to make more than 200 million doses quickly.
"A key question is who has the experience making hundreds of thousands, if not millions of doses," said Dr. Bruce Gellin, executive director of the National Network for Immunization Information. "The big drug companies have lots of experience. They know the hurdles."
But in the past, few of the major pharmaceutical companies have been interested in making vaccines for the government. Vaccines are not as profitable as prescription drugs, and some big drug companies have quit the vaccine business.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Thompson met with the top executives of the four largest vaccine manufacturers — all big enough to make tens of millions of doses of smallpox vaccine quickly.
But only one, Merck, confirmed that it was in preliminary talks with the government. Greg Reaves, a spokesman for Merck, said the company could not say more because of the negotiations.
The other major vaccine manufacturers — American Home Products (news/quote), Aventis (news/quote) and GlaxoSmithKline (news/quote) — said they were talking to the government, but not in specific negotiations.
"We're trying to assess the government's needs and then assess our ability to meet those needs," said Len Lavenda, an Aventis spokesman. "There is a sense of urgency."
Doug Petkus, a spokesman at American Home Products, said, "We've been talking to the government about how we can be helpful with our expertise."
Baxter International, based in Deerfield, Ill., said yesterday that the company had teamed with Acambis to negotiate with the government to make the vaccine. Deborah Spak, a spokeswoman for Baxter, said that it could make tens of millions of doses in six to nine months. It owns 20 percent of Acambis, based in Cambridge, Mass.
BioReliance (news/quote) of Rockville, Md., is also working with Acambis. It has a government subcontract to help Acambis manufacture the vaccine.
Capers W. McDonald, chief executive at BioReliance, said that Acambis and the government had asked "for specifics on how much we can expand and how rapidly."
An industry executive said it was not yet known what type of vaccine the government wanted.
Asked which method could produce vaccine the fastest, the executive said: "The way we did it before. But is that viable in 2001?"
Novavax Inc. (news/quote), a small company in Columbia, Md., that makes vaccines for use in clinical studies, said yesterday that it was also interested in making smallpox vaccine.
Novavax bid last year on the contract that Acambis won. John A. Spears, chief executive and president, estimated that the vaccine would cost the government $1.50 to $1.75 a dose for 300 million doses.
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