TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - From their brightest minds to their cutting edge labs, drug companies across America are donating offering the federal government technical resources in the fight against bioterrorism.
"I have never seen ... this much cooperation, energy and enthusiasm" from pharmaceutical companies in three decades in the industry, Richard Markham, chief executive of Aventis Pharma and chairman of an industry task force announced two weeks ago, said Friday.
Drug makers Pharmacia Corp. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. each are offering the federal government teams of two dozen scientists to research vaccines and treatments against bioterrorist attacks.
Eli Lilly and Co. is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to turn one of its labs over to research on antiviral medicines.
Abbott Laboratories, Aventis Pharma, Glaxo SmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co. and Pfizer have offered the federal government assistance from experts in bioterrorism, infectious diseases, antibiotics, virology, vaccine development and genomics, the study of how genes function.
The companies, along with American Home Products Corp. and Bayer Corp., are part of the Task Force on Emergency Preparedness along with industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
The task force aims to help protect the public from bioterrorism threats by quickly producing needed medicines and developing better vaccines and antibiotics.
Former Food and Drug Administration Acting Commissioner Dr. Michael Friedman, named Tuesday as the chief medical officer coordinating the task force efforts, said the drug makers are waiting for the federal government to take them up on their offers.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said during a press briefing Friday he was "encouraged by the discussions I had earlier this week with leaders of the pharmaceutical industry who pledged to share, if needed, their facilities, their products and their scientific genius to help meet America's needs."
Aventis Pharma's Markham said one priority for the industry will be developing a better anthrax vaccine because the current one has significant side effects and requires six doses over 18 months.
"It seems doable to our scientists, as well as others," said Markham, whose company is one of the world's top vaccine developers.
Another priority, he said, will be developing a third-generation smallpox vaccine, to improve on the one last used in this country in 1977, when smallpox was eradicated.
Eli Lilly this week gave the CDC one of its existing cancer drugs, Gemzar, and two experimental compounds to test for effectiveness against smallpox, company spokesman Ed Sagebiel said. The CDC has one of the two known stores of the highly contagious virus; the other is in Russia.