Last month was the PHEMCE conference in Washington DC which translated the governments approach to countermeasures production for the next decade or so.
From the discussions it appears that BARDA will be placing a greater focus on CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological & Nuclear) countermeasures issues in the future than it has in the preceding 5 years when there’s been a heavy emphasis on flu related countermeasures, H1N1, for example.
In addressing these issues there would appear to be a number of significant challenges to be addressed including: long term stability/shelf life of countermeasures, platforms for warm based production, platforms for surge production capability and technology solutions to promote efficient product transfer from clinical production to commercial scale manufacturing.
BARDA’s strategy to achieve this will most likely involve a number of public private partnerships and considerable funding investment to support the relevant activities involved.
At the conference, it was estimated that BARDA’s R&D spend would need to be equivalent to a top tier (top 10) pharmaceutical company.