US govt to acquire 20M doses of Imvamune

Following a competitive RFP process, Denmark's Bavarian Nordic has received notification from the US Department of Health and Human Services that it intends to procure 20 million doses of the company's third-generation Imvamune smallpox vaccine for the strategic national stockpile. Under the framework of the contract Bavarian Nordic must register Imvamune for healthy people and extend the license to those who are immunocompromised.

While the principal terms of the agreement have been reached, the contract is currently being finalized. It is expected to be the first DHHS procurement contract under the BioShield program since enactment of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act in December 2006.

The HHS notification continues the long-standing collaboration between Bavarian Nordic and the US government on the development and production of MVA as a safe smallpox vaccine. The first contract (RFP-1) was awarded in 2003; four years after the company initiated its MVA-based smallpox vaccine program. As part of the second contract (RFP-2) in 2004, the firm supplied half a million doses to the US government. Throughout the collaboration, Bavarian Nordic says it has continually invested its own funds in the expedited program as well as establishing a commercial manufacturing facility with a minimum capacity of 40 million doses of Imvamune a year.