Bavarian Nordic’s MVA-BN vaccine platform technology has been selected by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a part of the U.S. Department of Defense, for development of a vaccine against two potential biological threats to national security—Burkholderia pseudomallei and Burkholderia mallei. Bavarian Nordic is an international biotechnology company developing and manufacturing novel cancer immunotherapies and vaccines for infectious diseases.

"The award of this contract illustrates the strength of our MVA-BN vaccine platform technology, which has been developed through a decade-long partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services," said Anders Hedegaard, president and CEO of Bavarian Nordic. "As part of our strategy to expand our biodefense business beyond smallpox, we are pleased to add DTRA to our list of government partners with whom we work to develop novel biodefense vaccines."

DTRA is the fourth U.S. government agency to collaborate with Bavarian Nordic on the development of novel biodefense vaccines. Other ongoing collaborations include the development of vaccines against smallpox, filoviruses (Ebola and Marburg) and foot-and-mouth disease, for which the company has received funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate.

Under this new $0.5 million contract, Bavarian Nordic will design, generate and test MVA-BN-based recombinant vaccines against Burkholderia. If the contract yields a successful proof of concept, DTRA may support further development of the vaccine through a larger contract award.