More Military-Civilian Technology Fisticuffs

Anthrax: Army versus Vaxgen


THE VERDICT: Army. They've been researching Anthrax for half a century or more. Other companies are Johnny-come-latelies.

America's only approved anthrax vaccine is as state-of-the-art as the glow-in-the-dark hula hoop. Developed in the 1950s, AVA is effective, but that doesn't make it popular: Patients and doctors dislike the dosing schedule of six shots over 18 months, the localized and sometimes painful side effects, and the reports (clinically unsubstantiated) that the vaccine is linked to Gulf War Syndrome. In the past few years, especially after the anthrax attacks of 2001, the race has been on to find a replacement. The leading contender, known as rPA 102, has been developed jointly by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and private companies such as Brisbane, California-based VaxGen.

Discussing whether the Army or VaxGen has contributed more to the process is like debating whether John or Paul meant more to the Beatles-pointless, yet strangely enlightening. In the past year VaxGen has conducted the first human trials of rPA 102, refined the chemical makeup of the vaccine, and increased manufacturing yields fivefold. By 2005 the company hopes to manufacture three million sample doses that will be safer, purer and easier to administer than AVA. Army researchers, meanwhile, merely >discovered< Protective Antigen, the protein that triggers the body's immune response to anthrax. They determined the best way to produce it in bacteria, using recombinant genetic techniques. And they demonstrated in primates that rPA 102 was effective. Bioterror vaccines, in truth, are good for public health but typically bad for private business. "The big companies are not knocking our doors down," says Ed Nuzum, director of product development in the government's Office of Biodefense Research. Vaccines are designed for episodic rather than chronic use, and there's a single buyer, the government, which drives the price down. Working more or less on their own, Army researchers managed to invent the internal combustion engine; VaxGen now hopes it can mass produce the Model T.

The Vitals: USAMRIID

Key successes: Discovered protein that triggers immunity to anthrax; determined best way to produce the protein in bacteria using recombinant genetic techniques.

The Vitals: VaxGen

Key successes: Increased vaccine-manufacturing yields fivefold; conducted first human trials of vaccine