The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) — a division within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the Department of Health and Human Services — announced Emergent BioSolutions’ unveiling this week of the opening of its newly expanded Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) at its Bayview Campus in Baltimore.
The facility is one of three centers designated by the Department of Health and Human Services to provide advanced development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures to support the US government’s national security and public health emergency needs.
The CIADMs were designed to increase national security and enhance the nation’s ability to respond to public health threats by making the nation’s domestic infrastructure for development and manufacturing nimble and flexible.
Daniel J. Abdun-Nabi, Emergent BioSolutions’ president and chief executive officer, said, “With the expansion of our Bayview campus, Emergent is pleased to directly support BARDA’s vision of enhancing the nation’s capability to respond quickly to both known and emerging public health threats. This milestone strengthens our manufacturing infrastructure, which is one of our core competencies, and symbolizes Emergent’s commitment to the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, where we are proud to meaningfully contribute to economic activity and job growth.”
“The Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing were designed as public-private partnerships to provide greater speed, flexibility, and domestic capacity to produce medical countermeasures to address public health emergencies,” said Dr. Rick Bright, director of BARDA. “The work that we do in BARDA – and that we do together with industry partners at our CIADMs – is critical to protecting Americans’ health in emergencies and is fundamental to our nation’s security.”
Since its inception, the Emergent BioSolutions’ CIADM has been awarded four task orders by BARDA to develop Ebola and Marburg therapeutics and a Zika vaccine. Emergent also successfully manufactured some of its product candidates at the CIADM and an Ebola vaccine candidate as part of a third-party collaboration.
BARDA contract HHSO100201200004I, which was awarded to the company in June 2012 to establish a CIADM, consists of an eight-year base period of performance valued at approximately $220 million (cost-shared between the government and Emergent) and up to 17 additional one-year option periods.
The firm’s new Bayview facility is 112,000 square feet with investments to the original 56,000-square-foot facility purchased by the company in 2009. The facility, comprised of laboratory, manufacturing and office space, offers flexible manufacturing of drug substance from microbial, cell culture or viral production platforms and is equipped with disposable manufacturing technology to enable the company to meet the government’s domestic preparedness priorities on a cost-effective, reliable and sustainable basis. The new suite within the expanded facility is expected to come online with cGMP production capabilities in late 2018.
