Public Health Vaccines awarded BARDA option for development of vaccines against Sudan ebolavirus & Bundibugyo ebolavirus

This award adds more than $33 million to PHV’s BARDA contract to advance a Sudan ebolavirus vaccine candidate and two Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine candidates.

CAMBRIDGE, MA, UNITED STATES, June 9, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Public Health Vaccines, LLC (PHV), a biotechnology company out of Cambridge, MA, has been awarded an additional Option under its Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) contract to further the development of its vaccine candidates against Sudan ebolavirus and Bundibugyo ebolavirus. PHV is leveraging the proven recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) vector platform which has been licensed from Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) who originally developed it for use in vaccines against viral hemorrhagic fevers.

Sudan virus and Bundibugyo virus are both hemorrhagic fever filoviruses in the same viral family as Ebola Zaire virus and are responsible for sporadic outbreaks (including the current Bundibugyo virus outbreak), most often in Africa. Previous outbreaks for Sudan virus were in Uganda and South Sudan, and for Bundibugyo ebolavirus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Once in humans, transmission is through person-to-person contact, through contact with contaminated objects, or by contact with infected animals, such as bats and nonhuman primates. Sudan virus disease has a fatality rate of approximately 50% and Bundibugyo ebolavirus of between 25-50%. Currently, there are no licensed vaccines available to prevent either of these fatal infections.

PHV was originally awarded $10 million in February of 2019 by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for the development of its Marburg vaccine. An additional $45 million has since been awarded, and that vaccine will be entering Phase II clinical testing in the coming months.

This most recent award adds more than $33 million to PHV’s contract to advance a Sudan ebolavirus vaccine candidate and initiate development of two Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine candidates. The Sudan candidate is based on technology originally developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The Bundibugyo candidates include one being developed in collaboration with PHAC and a second, funded with partial support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and coming from the research of Dr. Andrea Marzi and Dr. Heinz Feldmann from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."

PHV Chief Operating Officer Dr. Joan Fusco stated, “Outbreak preparedness requires rapid response, validated platform technologies, and strong public–private partnerships. With BARDA’s expanded support, we are advancing our Sudan virus vaccine leveraging our VSV filovirus platform in close collaboration with BARDA and in alignment with its national preparedness mission, further strengthening our capability to address future emerging filovirus threats. In parallel, the initial development efforts for our VSV Bundibugyo virus program— enabled by BARDA with partial CEPI co-funding—underscore the value of coordinated investments in advancing medical countermeasures for emerging infectious disease threats. PHV is in full alignment with the shared mission and grateful for the commitments; we will do our part to deliver.”

This project has been supported in whole or in part with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response; Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under contract number HHSO100201900022C.

About Public Health Vaccines, LLC
Public Health Vaccines, LLC. (PHV), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a privately-held biotechnology company developing products for the prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases. The company’s primary focus has been on developing vaccines against high consequence pathogens utilizing the rVSV platform, including multiple vaccines against filoviruses (Marburg virus, Sudan ebolavirus and Ebola Bundibugyo) and a vaccine against the Paramyxovirus, Nipah virus. PHV funding partners for these programs include the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), for its Marburg vaccine, Sudan ebolavirus vaccine and Ebola Bundibugyo vaccine; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), for its Nipah vaccine and Ebola Bundibugyo vaccine.

For more information, please visit www.phvaccines.com or email info@phvaccines.com.

Michael S McGinnis
Public Health Vaccines
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