Altimmune gets up to $120.2 million for development of NasoShield anthrax vaccine

Altimmune has announced that the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has awarded the company a contract worth up to $120.2 million over five years for clinical development of NasoShield intranasal anthrax vaccine. An initial amount of $14.3 million will fund a Phase 1 trial of NasoShield, with an additional $105.9 million available for Phase 1b and Phase 2 studies, scale-up, regulatory activities and formulation development.

Earlier this year, Altimmune announced that BARDA had provided $10.49 million to the Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing (CIADM) at Texas A&M University, which will manufacture clinical materials and scale up the process.

Altimmune CEO Bill Enright said, “We are pleased to receive this continued validation of our RespirVec platform and BARDA’s support as we advance NasoShield into clinical development. Our anthrax vaccine candidate has the potential to provide more rapid, stable and durable protection from a single intranasally administered dose based on preclinical studies. We remain on track to file an IND with the FDA and commence a Phase 1 trial in the second half of 2017.”

Read the Altimmune press release.