IDT Biologika will manufacture five E. coli Master Cell Banks from its Maryland site to support a pentavalent vaccine for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US government’s NIH, awarded a 10-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) task order contract to vaccine and drugmaker IDT Biologika.

The task order will support a pentavalent vaccine by manufacturing five Master Cell Banks from IDT’s Rockville, Maryland plant, based on the bacteria E. coli.

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Jürgen Betzing, IDT’s CEO, said it is “a great honor” to receive the task order. “IDT has a long-standing history and proven track record of developing and manufacturing bacterial and virus-based vaccines. Our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility located in Rockville is well positioned to serve the current task order requirement.”

The contract forms part of a deal inked between the NIH and IDT in October last year, which saw the government agency pay the German drug and vaccine maker an initial $88,900 (€78,000) to support the first year of the contract. Over 10 years, IDT could receive up to $80 million depending on certain milestones.

German expansion

Meanwhile, IDT has inaugurated a new multifunctional production facility for vaccines at its site in Dessau-Rosslau, Germany, bringing increased capacity to IDT’s customers.

“We are active in markets that not everyone can serve,” Betzing said last week. “This is only possible when we are able to react flexibly to those markets’ requirements. This multifunctional production facility provides the basis for doing so.

“The fact that the building has a utilization rate of close to 50 percent right from the start underscores our customers’ high demand and the excellent growth perspectives coming with it.”