Bavarian Nordic delivers 1 million doses of first vaccine developed under US biopreparedness program

Danish drugmaker Bavarian Nordic says that it has delivered 1 million doses of its smallpox vaccine Imvamune to the US Strategic National Stockpile for use in the event of a smallpox bioterrorism attack on America.

Imvamune is the first vaccine successfully developed under Project BioShield, a US program created by Congress in 2004 to develop and purchase medicines and vaccines to protect the American public from bioterrorism attacks. Bioterrorism experts are concerned about the possibility of an attack on the US that exposes the population to the smallpox virus.

The vaccine was clinically developed and manufactured under contracts with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Under the BARDA contract, Bavarian Nordic will deliver 20 million doses of Imvamune to the US Strategic National Stockpile, with an option for 60 million more doses.