It Lives
My colleague Mike Rosenwald has an intriguing piece today about a biotech company called Emergent BioSolutions and its controversial former arch-rival VaxGen.
"The effort to protect the country from another anthrax attack will take an unexpected turn today when Rockville firm Emergent BioSolutions plans to announce that it has bought for $2 million an anthrax vaccine from a California company that federal health officials dropped in 2006," Rosenwald wrote.
It appears once again that the economics of survival can make for strange bedfellows.
"VaxGen of South San Francisco has struggled to survive since losing its $877.5 million contract for a next-generation anthrax vaccine. Having accumulated a $254 million deficit, VaxGen has struck an unlikely deal with Emergent, its once-bitter competitor still eager to compete for millions of dollars under the Bush administration's $5.6 billion Project BioShield program."
The story of VaxGen's rise and fall has not been sufficiently explored. Did we really need to spend close to a billion on an anthrax vaccine? And how, exactly, did a start up company get the contract? And why, by the way, did everything fall apart so spectacularly? And who in the government was held accountable for the debacle?
I'm happy to accept some reading assignments.
By Robert O'Harrow |
May 6, 2008; 7:00 AM ET
vaccines
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Posted by: LALA | May 7, 2008 1:49 AM
1. As someone who has actually had the fairly painful six-shot anthrax series currently available and someone who has friends whose bodies did not react well to that series (some of whom can no longer fly and will live the rest of their lives with weakness, shakes, fainting spells), I think an improved vaccine to this readily available and easily manufactured bioweapon is a great idea.
2. I expect that the contract was set aside for small or disadvantaged business as mandated by congress.
3. Who knows why it fell apart but a contributing factor may have been the requirement that small or disadvantaged business contracts must be performed at least 51% in house. A startup may not have the in-house ability to develop biotechnology.
4. Why is the government accountable for a company's failure? R&D efforts routinely fail. When you are paying someone to go out and discover new technology, new capability, or new drugs, you can not always expect to get a big payoff. It is only every once in a while that you set off from Spain to find a new route to India and end up "discovering" America.
Posted by: Been There | May 7, 2008 1:50 PM
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A) no, we didn't, but post-Sept 11th there was a lot of knee-jerk window dressing to keep the sheeple feeling as if the gov't was doing something . . . . anything.
B) I expect, if explored, they got the contract the same way a lot of companies created specifically for going after gov't contracts did -they bought politicans or were married/related to one. It's an extension of cronyism, made frantically lucrative by Bush's outsourcing initiative, which was brought on by his hatred for America's workers.
C) why does any company fall apart, spectacularly or otherwise? Bad business management.
D) oh please. The Bush regime holding someone accountable? That would lead to terrible things like holding the leaders of the regime responsible - can't have that. Karl said no.