Texas A&M will soon be one of the largest research and manufacturing facilities for biotechnology in the nation. The university won a 25 year contract totaling almost $2 billion dollars in revenues. “It’s the biggest federal grant to come to Texas since NASA, quite frankly,” Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp said. The news is huge for the College Station area which has very little biotechnology presence. The development of the “Center for Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing” will create roughly 1,000 new jobs, spur the local economy and entice other related businesses into the region.
Once developed, the center will be responsible for creating a working pandemic influenza vaccine and producing a high volume of doses for distribution in a very short period of time. Expectations are high, with the first vaccine available within three months of identification of a flu strain and full production of 50 million doses with-in a total time of four months. The center will also be responsible for increasing stockpiles of vaccines for other biological threats such as anthrax, radiation and other elements used in chemical warfare and bio-terrorism.
Texas A&M will not be alone with this responsibility. Also involved are huge pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline PCL, Emergent and Novartis AG. GlaxoSmithKline, Kalon Biotherapeutics and Texas A&M will receive the largest portion of the contract which includes an initial $176 million federal investment and a $110 million dollars from Texas A&M University, Texas State, and from private investments. Duke University, North Carolina State and Novartis are partnering as well as Emergent, Michigan State University, Kettering University in Michigan and the University of Maryland, Baltimore to create the second and third facilities in the bio-defense plan.
H1N1, was declared a pandemic within only four months of being discovered. With only one facility that could produce the vaccine for the influenza outbreak in 2009 and the discovery that the new H1N1 vaccine took longer to develop than a typical flu vaccine, Americans began to panic. The first vaccines were shipped in early October, four months after reach pandemic levels (eight months after discovery), and in staggering low supply. The city of New York received roughly 70,000 doses for their population of over 8 million people. Just the College Station facility alone should be able to cut the response time in half and reach full distribution in one-third the time.