HHS said it will award two U.S. companies contracts worth a total of $215 million to develop new seasonal flu vaccines more rapidly.

According to the agency, Rockville, Md.-based Novavax has a three-year contract for $97 million that can be extended an additional two years for a total of $179.1 million. Novavax will develop the technology to produce vaccines that use insect cells to express proteins and create viruslike particles that, in turn, stimulate a strong immune response in humans.

The other contract is for VaxInnate in Cranbury, N.J., which has a $117.9 million contract for the first three years, which can be extended for two more years for a total of $196.6 million. VaxInnate will produce a recombinant flu vaccine technology based on combining influenza and bacteria proteins to stimulate strong immune response to protect against the flu.

“The 2009 H1N1 pandemic demonstrated the need for technologies that can provide vaccines more rapidly,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a news release. “These next-generation flu vaccines hold the potential to be even more effective and to make first and last doses of vaccine available sooner than existing flu vaccines by weeks and months which can save more lives during a pandemic as well as during seasonal flu outbreaks.”

HHS also said the contracts use the federal government’s new approach to producing clinical countermeasures, which are the medications, vaccines, medical equipment and supplies needed in health emergencies. Last summer, Sebelius released an examination of the government’s system to produce medical countermeasures and recommendations for a better approach. Those suggestions included developing flexible and robust technologies in a much shorter timeframe, according to HHS.