Bruce E. Ivins, le scientifique de biodefense de gouvernement lié aux envois mortels d'anthrax de 2001, tenus pour gagner financièrement de la dépense fédérale massive au lendemain crainte-rempli de ces massacres, Los Angeles Times a appris.

Ivins est énuméré en tant que Co-inventeur sur deux brevets pour un vaccin génétiquement machiné d'anthrax, les disques fédéraux montrent. Séparément, Ivins également est énuméré en tant que Co-inventeur sur une application pour faire breveter un additif pour différents vaccins de biodefense.

Ivins, 62, morts mardi dans un suicide apparent dans le Maryland. Les autorités fédérales avaient informé son avocat que des frais criminels liés aux envois seraient classés.

En tant que Co-inventeur d'un nouveau vaccin d'anthrax, Ivins était parmi ceux dans la ligne pour rassembler des redevances de brevet si le produit était venu pour lancer sur le marché, selon un directeur au courant de la matière.

Le produit avait langui sur des étagères de laboratoire jusqu'à septembre. 11 attaques et les envois d'anthrax, après quoi les fonctionnaires fédéraux ont emballé pour stocker des vaccins et des antidotes contre le terrorisme biologique potentiel.

Une compagnie de biotechnologie de Francisco-secteur de San, VaxGen, a gagné un contrat en valeur $877.5 millions pour fournir des séries du nouveau vaccin. Le contrat était d'abord attribué sous la législation favorisée par le Président Bush, appelé Project BioShield.

Un directeur qui était au courant de la matière a dit que, comme état de son acheter le vaccin de l'armée, VaxGen a eu est d'accord sur le montant vente-connexe de part avec les inventeurs.

Une « certaine proportion aurait été partagée avec les inventeurs, » a dit le directeur, qui a parlé anonyme en raison de la confidentialité contractuelle. « Ivins se serait tenu pour faire des dix des milliers de dollars, mais pas de millions. »

Deux ans après que le contrat a été attribué à VaxGen, le pacte a été terminé quand la compagnie ne pourrait pas fournir ses groupes dans les délais. L'arrêt a signifié que VaxGen n'était pas payé, ni étaient Ivins et ses Co-inventeurs.

Ivins également a été énuméré en tant qu'un de deux inventeurs d'un autre produit biodefense-connexe qui a gagné le patronage fédéral.

Selon leur demande encore-en suspens des États-Unis patent, the inventors hoped the additive would bolster certain vaccines’ capacity to prevent infections “from bioterrorism agents.”

From December 2002 to December 2003, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency committed $12 million for additional testing of the experimental additive. That research money was designated for Coley Pharmaceutical Group, which was developing the additive. The company was acquired last fall by Pfizer Corp.

Samuel C. Miller, a Georgetown Law Center professor who is a patent-law expert, said that the extent to which Ivins stood to gain from the two issued patents or the one that remains pending hinges on the terms of the related contracts.

“It will depend on the business arrangements that are in place,” Miller said.

On Friday, colleagues and critics of Ivins pondered the mystery within the mystery: If Ivins did it, why?

One former senior official with Ivins’ employer, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, whom the FBI questioned at length about Ivins, said he believed his former colleague wanted more attention — and resources — shifted to biological defense.

“It had to have been a motive,” said the former official, who suspects that Ivins was the culprit. “I don’t think he ever intended to kill anybody. He just wanted to prove ‘Look, this is possible.’ He probably had no clue that it would aerosolize through those envelopes and kill those postal workers.”

Of the five people killed by the mailings, two worked for the U.S. Postal Service in the Washington, D.C., area; one was a photo editor in Palm Beach County, Fla.; another was a hospital supply provider in New York City; and the last known victim was a 94-year-old woman in Connecticut.

Several letters were addressed to prominent people — two U.S. senators and NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, for example.

For nearly 30 years, Ivins served far from the limelight, a PhD microbiologist who drew a civil servant’s pay while handling some of the most deadly pathogens on Earth — live spores of anthrax.

The deadly mailings of anthrax-tainted envelopes transported Ivins from the backwater of government scientific research at Ft. Detrick, Md., to the center of the nation’s fledgling war on terrorism. It also spurred multibillion-dollar national security initiatives.

Ivins was thrust into the federal investigation of the mailings as well. He helped the FBI analyze anthrax recovered from a letter addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).

He also played a lead role in helping a private company, BioPort, win regulatory approval to continue making the vaccine required for U.S. service personnel deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions.

From 2000 to early 2002, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID helped BioPort resolve problems related to the potency of the vaccine. Because of those and other manufacturing difficulties, production had been suspended. The efforts of Ivins and his colleagues helped BioPort win FDA approval to resume production.

At a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID were bestowed the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to nonmilitary employees of the Defense Department.

“Awards are nice,” Ivins said in accepting the honor. “But the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on line.”

The Times sought earlier this year to obtain annual financial disclosure statements filed by Ivins with his employer. USAMRIID spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said last month that Ivins had filed financial reports exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

Ivins’ apparent suicide and the Justice Department’s decision to bring criminal charges against him were first reported Thursday night by The Times. On Friday, Ivins’ lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, defended his client and said that Ivins had cooperated fully with the FBI.

“We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial,” Kemp said, implicitly confirming that Ivins had been about to be formally charged. “The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people. . . . In Dr. Ivins’ case, it led to his untimely death.”

Kemp did not respond to telephone calls and e-mails for this article.

Times researcher Janet Lundblad contributed to this report.