To the Editor:
Re “Preparing for Bioterror, Neglecting Virus Threat” (front page, March 7):
The past year has been the most important in Emergent BioSolutions’ history. We’ve had the honor of helping our country address Covid-19, manufacturing vaccines in a way few companies can. Deploying longstanding pandemic preparedness capabilities to shorten timelines and ramp up large-scale manufacturing, we can now make more than a billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine a year.
So we take issue with your article’s depiction of the role that Emergent BioSolutions plays in pandemic and biothreat preparedness, and we reject the idea that the government should prioritize one risk at the expense of another, leaving the American public dangerously exposed.
Emergent helps keep our country ready to fight the most challenging scenarios imaginable, from global pandemics to the opioid crisis to an anthrax attack.
Like most American companies, we lobby our government to ensure that our leaders understand the importance of our work. We have consistently advocated for a better resourced Strategic National Stockpile to ensure preparedness for a wide range of threats: accidental, deliberate and naturally occurring.
While other companies have exited or declined to enter this difficult but vital space, Emergent has continued to invest, and the country is better prepared because of it.
Bob Kramer
Gaithersburg, Md.
The writer is president and chief executive of Emergent BioSolutions.