Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, press star one on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to withdraw your question, press star two. Questions will be taken in the order received. Press star one to begin. Your first question comes from the line of Richard Smith with J.P. Morgan, please proceed.
Richard Smith – J.P. Morgan
Yes, good morning. Just a couple of questions, one would be anthrax antibody that you’ve just licensed in, could you give us a sense of the next steps for that product, when that might be in a position to be licensed, would it be something to look out into 2009 and just could you give us a sense of where you stand on the development of maybe second or third generation anthrax vaccine, please.
Fuad El-Hibri
Thank you Richard, I’m going to ask Mike to answer the first question and I will answer the second one.
Mike Langford
So on the anthrax therapeutic that we just [did] license, we had submitted a contract where [we searched], contract that with Asian [deniad], we’re anticipating that award to be announced in September. So the next steps for that product are if you take it [unintelligible] process development for commercial scale manufacturing to go ahead and execute the non clinical efficacy studies and then to go ahead and begin and complete the phase 1 clinical trial for that product. So as it stands we look to advance the development of the product probably beginning this fall. I anticipating an award. So it we’re very excited about this new acquisitions because it really positions us in both, on both tracks, the polyclonal AIG track and the monoclonal one where we compete with [HGF]. So we believe it’s a very strong candidate and we believe that we have a good chance of getting some funding [unintelligible].
Richard Smith – J.P. Morgan
Would it be fair to say that given what you’ve seen with HGSI that the path for future development is pretty much laid out for you?
Fuad El-Hibri
Yes, you know it’s always good to be the first to market but sometimes it’s also advantageous to be the second and to basically follow the footsteps of someone who has gone through the trials and tribulations. So we’re very optimistic and we understand that the government likes to pursue multiple suppliers and we believe that we are well positioned.
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