Bavarian Nordic has received an order worth $63 million from the U.S. government for the production of additional bulk and final freeze-dried doses of Jynneos, its vaccine against smallpox and variola virus, the company said Tuesday.
Under the contract, the Danish biotech company will manufacture 1 million freeze-dried vaccines to be delivered by 2026.
The additional bulk product, which represents the majority of the contract value, will help replenish the stockpile used to manufacture vaccines in response to the smallpox outbreak in 2022.
In August, the World Health Organization declared smallpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak of the viral infection in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that spread to neighboring countries and beyond.
Smallpox can be spread through close contact. It is usually mild but can be fatal in rare cases. It causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body.
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