The U.S. government invested $440 million in three vaccine plants in the U.S. in 2012 with the proviso that if something like a pandemic occurred, it could call on them to produce drugs that it required. With Ebola spreading, those calls have now been made.
The Ebola crisis has prompted the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to ask the three plant owners–Novartis ($NVS), GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) and Emergent Biosolutions ($EBS) and their partners–to tell it what it would take for them to produce ZMapp, an experimental drug currently being produced through a novel approach using tobacco plants. BARDA wants detailed timetables and budgets for making ZMapp, Reuters reports. They are supposed to respond by Nov. 10.
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