Anthrax vaccine maker behind schedule

WASHINGTON – The government’s $1 billion effort to develop a new anthrax vaccine has run into difficulty, with the company in charge of the project reporting failure in a major human test and falling at least a year behind schedule.

Officers at VaxGen Inc., of Brisbane, Calif., said in interviews that they believe they have isolated the problem with their vaccine and are well on their way to fixing it. But they acknowledged that they have no hope of meeting a deadline to deliver 25 million doses of the vaccine into a national stockpile by November, and will default on their contract with the government unless it grants an extension they have requested.

The difficulties appear to confirm predictions on Capitol Hill two years ago that a small company like VaxGen wouldn’t be able to meet an aggressive schedule for stockpiling millions of doses of a new anthrax vaccine. Until the full stockpile of 75 million doses is ready, the United States would depend on antibiotics to treat a large-scale anthrax attack, a strategy that terrorists could overcome by creating antibiotic-resistant anthrax.

Administrators at the Health and Human Services Department declined to discuss specifics of the VaxGen contract. But they said that, despite some setbacks, they are building a national defense against anthrax, among the most fearsome of bioterror weapons. In particular, they noted, they have already stockpiled enough antibiotics to treat 40 million people after a large-scale attack.

With the VaxGen product delayed, the government recently bought 5 million doses of an older, controversial anthrax vaccine, enough to treat fewer than 2 million people, and hopes to order more when funds are identified.