Hemispherx BioPharma (HEB)

[NickPar]

The U.S. Dept. of HHS Pandemic Planning Update VI from January 8, 2009 (pg. 10) shows the intended adjuvant purchase of 5.2 Mil doses from GSK (see below). On the timeline it shows: January 2007 – HHS awards $132.5 million to develop H5N1 adjuvanted influenza vaccines

The use of the funds in not clear but maybe Diane can shed some light on the subject; sent her an email with questions. HEB should be right there, IMO.

The pdf can be found at http://www.flu.gov/plan/pdf/panflureport6.pdf (19 pgs.).

Adjuvants
When adjuvants are successfully paired with influenza vaccines, the vaccines can be stretched to protect many more Americans and the vaccines may provide broader protection.

In 2005, HHS set a goal of providing pandemic influenza vaccine for 20 million people. Since then, planning efforts have also included identifying and testing adjuvants that could be combined with the pre-pandemic and pandemic vaccines to make those original 20 million available doses extend to protect more people.

Early research results have been promising and have pointed to the possibility of combining an H5N1 vaccine manufactured by one company with adjuvants from another company. The resulting “joint” vaccine could boost the effectiveness of each adjuvanted dose and lead to a far larger stockpile of vaccine. Further research is now underway to test this preliminary result, in what is known as a “mix-and-match” study of adjuvants among different vaccine manufacturers.

In the meantime, HHS will continue to purchase and stockpile additional doses of pre-pandemic vaccine. HHS is moving forward with the purchase of 5.2 million doses of adjuvant from GSK that will be paired with GSK antigen, currently held in bulk form in the HHS pre-pandemic vaccine stockpile.