NIH said it awarded five-year contracts which could total $150 million to four companies to develop broad-spectrum therapeutics. The NIAID awards will support research on antibiotics, antivirals and an antitoxin “to prevent or treat diseases caused by multiple types of bacteria or viruses. The contracts “are designed to support essential research and development activities to enable promising investigational therapies to move toward early-phase clinical studies and, if successful in clinical studies, on to eventual licensure. The ultimate goal is to develop products that the U.S. government can stockpile to protect the public in the event of a bioterror attack or public health crisis.” NIH said the contracts are to focus “on candidate therapies that can be used against classes of pathogens rather than being agent-specific. Such broad-spectrum therapeutics would improve preparedness for all infectious threats, whether they occur naturally or are deliberately introduced.” More on the companies involved and their research focus areas here:

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2011/niaid-13.htm