Pressroom
HHS Creates New Centers to Develop, Manufacture Medical Countermeasures
Source: HHS News Release
06/18/2012
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has established three new centers for developing and manufacturing vaccines and other medical countermeasures. The Centers for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing would help protect Americans’ health in the event of emergencies, enabling the government to transition quickly and cost effectively between products. The centers mark the creation of the first major domestic infrastructure in the United States for addressing bioterrorism, pandemic influenza and other epidemics. The facilities will use modern cell- and recombinant-based vaccine technologies that have the potential to speed up vaccine production. The centers will become operational in 2014 and 2015, and will be capable of producing a quarter of the nation’s pandemic influenza vaccine within four months of the onset of a pandemic. HHS will invest nearly $400 million in the initial phases of the centers, which are public-private partnerships. Emergent Manufacturing Operations Baltimore, Novartis, and the Texas A&M University System will each lead a facility.
