Pfizer tasked with novel vaccine research by US government department

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), the world’s largest drugmaker by sales, has been awarded a nearly $7.7 million technology investment agreement by the US Department of Defense to research new approaches to vaccine development, via the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Under the contract, announced earlier this month, Pfizer will perform an R&D program designed to develop a technology platform to identify and subsequently induce the production of protective antibodies to an emerging pathogen directly in an infected or exposed individual. Work will be performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The estimated completion date is December 8, 2016

The traditional method of "curing" a disease - from which the DARPA is deviating - involves extracting a pathogen, isolating its antigen, and using that antigen to create a vaccine in vitro, commented Richard Smith on The Motley Fool blog. This vaccine is then injected into a patient to stimulate his or her immune system to fight off subsequent exposures to the pathogen.