UPMC hopes new vaccine center can fight bioterrorism

With a little help from the federal government, UPMC officials believe they can tackle… With a little help from the federal government, UPMC officials believe they can tackle bioterrorism by becoming one of the world’s largest vaccine producers.

Wendy Zellner, a UPMC spokeswoman, predicted that the medical center could save the U.S. government more than $28 billion over 25 years and create 7,000 jobs if it builds a new vaccine center and switches the way it produces shots.

Zellner said in an e-mail that UPMC would begin to use disposable parts when creating vaccines, allowing it to switch from producing one vaccine to another in a short amount of time. The quicker turnaround, she said, would allow the medical center to respond faster to sudden threats of bioterrorism — anything from biological weapons to naturally occurring pandemics.

“The vaccines and therapeutics produced in this new facility might address such threats as smallpox, Ebola, anthrax and the bubonic plague, to name a few, although the precise products and the priorities would be established by the federal government,” she said.

Jeffrey Romoff, the medical center’s chief executive officer, testified before Congress late last month asking legislators to set aside an estimated $580 million for the project. UPMC and its partners, mostly pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, would provide an additional $200 to $300 million for the new vaccine center. A new nonprofit firm, 21st Century Biodefense, a subsidiary of UPMC, would oversee its daily operations.

“Over the past decade, we have all seen official government report after report cite biological weapons as being among the top national security threats to the nation,” Romoff said in his testimony. “There are concrete and innovative steps the country can and should be taking to deal with these vulnerabilities and challenges that will make us far better prepared for a range of crises.”

Romoff said the country currently relies on small biotechnology companies, which often can’t use the newest technology, to produce its vaccines. Creating a new center at UPMC, which would be capable of producing vaccines in bulk and on short notice, he said, would save the nation money and better prepare it for public health threats.

Zellner said congressional reports categorize biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction. They also predict that a future attack on the United States would more likely use biological weapons than nuclear ones, she said.

The idea for the new center has been in the works for three years, since UPMC received a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. If approved, the project could receive funding in the 2011 federal budget and be operational by 2013.