Date: 2015-10-29
Type of information: Production agreement
Compound: anti-Ebola virus monoclonal antibodies
Company: Medicago (Canada) Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (USA)
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
Type agreement: production manufacturing
Action mechanism: monoclonal antibody
Disease: Ebola fever
Details: * On February 24, 2015, Medicago, a leading company in the development and production of plant-based vaccines and therapeutics, announced that it has received a task order from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for three anti-Ebola virus monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with expected performance comparable to that of ZMapp™, from Mapp Biopharmaceutical.
Medicago will manufacture the antibodies in its Quebec City, Canada facility, for a study in non-human primates (NHP). Two of these antibodies were discovered by the Public Health Agency of Canada. This order is the result of a Task Order Request (TOR) that was solicited by BARDA on December 22, 2014. It is part of the Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract between Medicago and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Preliminary results have shown that Medicago’s technology can rapidly produce anti-Ebola antibodies with high yields, thereby potentially boosting production volumes and worldwide supply. In accordance with U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR 16.505 (b)(1)), this TOR allowed all four awardees of the DARPA ID/IQ contracts to compete. Medicago’s ID/IQ contract was awarded in December 2012.
Financial terms:
Latest news: * On October 29, 2015, Medicago announced that the company has been awarded a contract by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to develop two antibodies to fight the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus. Medicago will produce these antibodies at its facility in Quebec City. At the same time, Medicago said that, prior to this award, the company successfully completed the recent contract signed with the U.S. government to explore an alternate production method for Ebola antibodies against the Zaire strain.
