The government tries to fight against anthrax with more and more drugs. So the fight went tighter as many pharmaceutical companies try to get the best product. Two biotechs, Emergent BioSolutions of Rockville and PharmAthene of Annapolis, became rivals in the fight against anthrax. They both announced that the government has released new contracts for them to build a vaccine against anthrax.

The government already has a contract with Emergent for a supplier of anthrax vaccine. The company signed a $448 million contract to release 18.75 million doses of BioThrax. But the vaccine requires six injections during 18 months and many people have complained about side effects.

An improved form of BioThrax is under revision as The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, along with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority gave $29.7 million to Emergent to release it as soon as possible and to make it even better by increasing the dosage of vaccine so it would require fewer injections.

Also $83.9 million were offered to PharmAthene for creating a modified anthrax vaccine which can require only one or two injections to create the immunity system against anthrax.

Both Emergent and PharmAthene compete to give the Strategic National Stockpile the 25 million doses of anthrax vaccine. Stephen G. Brozak, president of WBB Securities, a San Diego-based investment and research firm, said that "This was obviously more important to PharmAthene than it was to Emergent," reffering to the amount of money the both companies were offered.