Major Vaccine contract boosts share price. More to come…

By Allen Gibson, HomelandDefenseStocks.com 
Nov 2004  

VaxGen Inc. has finally received the contract to supply 75 million doses of Anthrax vaccine to the US government. The contract is worth $877.5 million dollars.

VaxGen shares surged up over 20% on over 5 million volume the day after it received the contract, part of the $5.6 billion “Bio Shield” initiative.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson noted when Bio Shield was passed: “It will also speed R&D on next-generation countermeasures. And it will give the FDA the ability to make promising new treatments available quickly in emergency situations.”

Such research, along with stockpiling of vaccines, may be none too soon. A recent study conducted in England says that Bioterror is by far the most likely attack scenario we face. The report, prepared for the British Medical Association (BMA), says that, left unchecked, advances in biotechnology could equip terrorists to do as much damage  as did the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, which killed more American soldiers than did all the battles of WW1! Malcolm Dando, the report's author, says controlling biotech is going to be more difficult than the nuclear proliferation issue, and that the “window of opportunity” to take on the spread of such biological weapons is shrinking fast.

In 1999 the BMA called for the strengthening of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that was signed in 1975. It issued this second report because the pace of change in bio science is accelerating so rapidly.

A report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies agrees that growing numbers of the scientific community now recognize that a daunting array of engineered bioweapon agents are looming in the near future.

 The life sciences are at the beginning of a revolutionary period. A prime example of this was the identification, in 2001, of the approximately 40,000 genes in the human genome. Scientists are rapidly learning how to translate this genomic “parts list” into a sophisticated understanding of how specific genes control human biological systems. Such discoveries will bring great benefits, but they will also allow the development of a new constellation of powerful next-generation bioweapons.

Some question vaccines effectiveness.

The BMA study contradicts what we reported here this summer, when Dr. Carl Schultz, professor of emergency medicine at U of C Irvine, and a nationally recognized expert in bioterrorism, told us that, despite all the dire warning about bioterror, he still feels that a bomb is the more likely scenario. “Explosives are what the terrorists know,” he says. And any kind of ‘dirty’ (radioactively contaminated) device would have a tremendous psychological effect. Besides, says Dr. Schultz, “Blowing up a chemical plant is easier than spreading a chemical agent.”

Others agree that vaccines may be the wrong place to focus, but for very different reasons: Dr. Ken Alibek is the former civilian head of the Russian bioweapons research program. So he knows a thing or two about creating new weapons. Now working here at the National Center for Biodefense, he argue that less money should be spent on vaccine purchase and development and more on post-exposure treatments.

 “Before squandering enormous sums of money on the research and development of a single type of countermeasure, especially one that will be ineffective and is unlikely ever to be used, the benefits and potential of other areas of medical defense approaches should be examined,” says Alibek.

To that end, his Center is hosting a conference later this month that will examine those other approaches.

Either way, the preparedness of civil defense agencies to cope with a large-scale attack is still a work-in-progress. So we can expect to see other contracts in the near future as part of Bio Shield. And other companies, with technologies that can respond to bioterror, will likely see some solid gains in their stocks as well. VaxGen will not be alone.

Allen R. Gibson

Allen R. Gibson has over twenty-five years of experience in media and corporate communications.  He has been a reporter, television producer, and marketing communications consultant for public companies in both the US and Canada.  

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