BioSolutions posts healthy progress

Emergent BioSolutions has come on strong in the past few weeks with two major announcements that could have a long-term impact on the Rockville company’s earnings.

First, there was the announcement three weeks ago that the company had won a $448 million, three-year contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to supplement the nation’s stockpile of anthrax vaccine.

Emergent BioSolutions agreed to deliver 18.75 million doses of its vaccine, called BioThrax. It has a shelf life of three years, but Emergent BioSolutions is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to extend it to four years.

The contract is part of Operation BioShield, a program Congress approved in May 2004 to protect the nation from biological weapons by stockpiling vaccines and medications. The program followed the fall 2001 anthrax attacks.

Last week, the company announced that a typhoid vaccine is showing positive results in Phase II clinical trials in a test on children in Vietnam.

Typhoid fever, a potentially fatal disease, affects about 22 million people worldwide each year with high fever, headaches, constipation and sometimes delirium.

“The recent typhoid data is encouraging and indicates great promise for what would be the first single-dose, drinkable typhoid vaccine,” said Daniel J. Abdun-Nabi, Emergent BioSolutions’ president.

The vaccine “could enable us to secure a significant share of the worldwide typhoid vaccine market,” he said.

The tests are being done on children ages 5 to 14.

Of the two announcements, the contract to supply the government with anthrax vaccine would have the most immediate impact, stock analysts said.

“In my view, it secures their financing for the next three years,” said Gene Mack of HSBC Securities.

“What’s unique is they don’t really have competitors,” Mr. Mack said. “There is no other anthrax vaccine.”

The typhoid vaccine is potentially important, but it is too early in its testing phase to be certain that profits will follow for Emergent BioSolutions, he said.

“It’ll be several years before a regulatory review happens,” Mr. Mack said.

He values the company’s stock as a good deal for investors if it can overcome the image of being too dependent on only a couple of government customers.

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