The Department of Defense has selected Denmark's Bavarian Nordic to develop a vaccine against two potential biological pathogens deemed to be threats to national security.
The company will use its MVA-BN vaccine platform technology to create a vaccine for the gram-negative bacteria Burkholderia pseudomallei and B. mallei. B. pseudomallei causes melioidosis, a human disease found in water and soil that's endemic in Southeast Asia and northern Australia. B. mallei causes glanders, a zoonotic disease primarily occurring in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Central and South America. Melioidosis and glanders require lengthy antibiotic therapy and often have poor clinical outcomes.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been focused on gram-negative bacteria, which are deadly because of their increasing resistance to multiple drugs and antibiotics.
Specifically, there's a significant interest in developing vaccines for B. pseudomallei and B. mallei, which have possible biothreat applications and public health implications.
Bavarian Nordic will work with the DOD's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to design, generate and test MVA-BN-based recombinant vaccines against Burkholderia.
DTRA is the fourth U.S. agency to collaborate with Bavarian Nordic on the development of novel biodefense vaccines. The company has also received funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate for the development of vaccines against smallpox, Ebola, Marburg and foot-and-mouth disease.
According to Bavarian Nordic, more than 7,000 individuals--1,000 of whom are immunocompromised--have been vaccinated with MVA-BN-based vaccines.
- here's the press release