PharmAthene Inc. announced Friday that it received a federal multi-year contract to fight anthrax. The contract may possibly worth about $83.9 million, the biodefense research company said.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), decided PharmAthene Inc. should build the anthrax vaccine.

The biodefense company, which develops medical countermeasures against biological and chemical threats, is trying to find a treatment that could be stored, transported and employed at room temperature and that will involve a small number of doses for immunity to chemical and biological terrorism. The institute awarded PharmAthene $83.9 million to develop and manufacture the vaccine against the infectious disease.

At the start, PharmAthene will receive financial support of an estimated $13.2 million throughout a "base period" of performance.

“PharmAthene is strategically building a leading franchise in anthrax countermeasures - a potentially billion dollar market,” according to PharmAthene President and Chief Executive Officer, David P. Wright.

Another biopharmaceutical company, Emergent BioSolutions, said it has won a federal contract worth $29.7 million also to create anthrax-fighting drugs.

The rival biotechs are battling to provide the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) with no less than 25 million doses of a genetically engineered vaccine that would be able to combat anthrax. In the meantime, both companies have been involved in a process of improving their own anthrax franchises by developing new vaccines, as well as therapies for individuals who have been exposed to the anthrax bacterium.