Fuad El-Hibri, whose company won billions of dollars in government contracts to manufacture a vaccine against anthrax but stumbled in 2021, died on April 23 at his home. He was 64 years old.
His family announced his death. A representative for the family said that the cause was cancer.
Emergent BioSolutions was an obscure player in the world of government contracting, but an influential one, thanks to extensive lobbying efforts and campaign contributions. The contract accounted for half of the budget for the Strategic National Stockpile.
The relationship occasionally drew scrutiny, but it also made Mr. El-Hibri's company an obvious choice to produce the Covid vaccines. The federal government gave Emergent a $628 million contract in 2020.
Emergent wasn't ready for the task. It was part of a government program to quickly scale up vaccine production in an emergency, but it had yet to demonstrate such a capacity.
The equivalent of 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had to be discarded because of worker error in March of that year. The Biden administration had been hoping for a smooth launch of the vaccine, but production was temporarily shut down.
Robert G.Kramer, the company's chief executive, testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronaviruses in May.
Both men defended the company, but Mr. El-Hibri was contrite about its failures.
The cross-contamination incident is unacceptable, he said.
Sixty million more doses were found to be contaminated in June.
The son of Ibrahim and Elizabeth El-Hibri was born on March 2, 1958 in Hildesheim, Germany. He graduated with a degree in economics from the university in 1980. He received a master's degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Management in 1982.
He is survived by his family, including his wife, Nancy, his mother, brother, sister, daughter, and son.
Mr. El-Hibri began his career working for Citicorp in Saudi Arabia and later worked for the consulting firm in Indonesia. After returning to the United States, he started a business that helped national telecom companies upgrade their networks.
The Saudi Arabian government was advised by him to buy millions of doses of the vaccine. Emergent BioSolutions was born out of that experience.
He co-founded the company in 1998. He and his partners won a bid to buy a government laboratory in Michigan and upgrade it to produce vaccines for the U.S. military.
In 2004, the company changed its name to Emergent BioSolutions. In 2006 it went public.
Emergent grew rich because it focused on one product and one customer, and produced Narcan, used to treat opiate overdoses.
The company's financial success was attributed to its aggressive efforts to win a large part of the strategic stockpile's budget. Many experts consider it an outsize chunk, given the relatively low risk of a widespread anthrax attack and the option to use cheap antibiotics for many cases.
Purchases are supposed to be based on careful assessments by government officials of how best to save lives, but many have also been influenced by Emergent's bottom line.
Mr. El-Hibri and his wife gave a lot of money to Republican candidates. An employee political action committee at Emergent gave over a million dollars.
In the fall of 2020, Emergent was one of two facilities contracted to produce Covid vaccines. Mr. El-Hibri had $42 million in stock options and shares.
After the production debacle at Emergent became public, the company faced an uprising by shareholders, including a lawsuit accusing it of committing securities fraud by falsely claiming it was ready to produce the vaccine in order to boost the value of its stock.
The chairman of Emergent BioSolutions stepped down on April 1.
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