Aug 7 2007, 10:46 AM EST
News source: Business Wire
Meridian Bioscience, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio (NASDAQ:VIVO) today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Meridian Life Science, Inc. (MLS) was awarded a five year contract (base year plus 4 option years) having a value of up to $12.2 million by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Meridian will manufacture up to 10 clinical experimental vaccines per year at its biopharmaceutical facility located in Memphis, TN. Meridian will be working closely with the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases (LID) of the NIAID, which has a long history of vaccine development and identification of new agents of viral diseases.
The contract requires production and safety testing of experimental non-influenza and influenza virus vaccines and other vaccine-related products for use in humans. Meridian will be manufacturing suspensions of viruses that have been shown by evaluation in vitro and in vivo to be promising candidates for use in vaccination of humans. Meridian will also be preparing suspensions of wild type viruses that are needed for challenge studies to evaluate effectiveness of immunoprophylaxis or in pathogenesis studies. The scope of the contract also includes the manufacture and qualification of Master Cell Lines for use in the production of such viruses or for other uses as directed by the NIAID.
This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHSN272200700040C.
Richard L. Eberly, President, Meridian Life Science, Inc., commented, "We are pleased to continue our collaboration with the NIH to include the production of viral vaccines and challenge materials for use in human clinical studies. The LID of the NIAID/NIH is one of the premier vaccine development laboratories in the world. Being selected for this program is consistent with our core strengths in cell culture, virology, and immunology and demonstrates our commitment to high quality manufacturing of clinical biologics. Through collaboration with the LID of the NIAID/NIH, we are hopeful that many of these experimental vaccines will ultimately be used for the prevention of viral diseases in humans."
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor from civil litigation for forward-looking statements accompanied by meaningful cautionary statements. Except for historical information, this report contains forward-looking statements which may be identified by words such as "estimates", "anticipates", "projects", "plans", "seeks", "may", "will", "expects", "intends", "believes", "should" and similar expressions or the negative versions thereof and which also may be identified by their context. Such statements, whether expressed or implied, are based upon current expectations of the Company and speak only as of the date made. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, without limitation, the following: Meridian's continued growth depends, in part, on its ability to introduce into the marketplace enhancements of existing products or new products that incorporate technological advances, meet customer requirements and respond to products developed by Meridian's competition. While Meridian has introduced a number of internally developed products, there can be no assurance that it will be successful in the future in introducing such products on a timely basis. Ongoing consolidations of reference laboratories and formation of multi-hospital alliances may cause advers
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