The global effort to combat the spread of mosquito-borne Zika virus in the Western Hemisphere now will include the company soon to become the largest U.S. government services contractor.

Reston, Virginia-based Leidos will work with Canadian health science company ImmunoVaccine on a vaccine to prevent Zika in humans and seek to advance a prototype into preclinical tests.

Under this partnership, Leidos will contribute resources from the company’s in-house virtual drug development program that includes a team focused on efforts to identify potential antigens for ImmunoVaccine to use in tests.

“Our virtual pharma approach ensures that we are not beholden to a particular technology or laboratory, ” Leidos Deputy Health Group President Jerry Hogge said.

Leidos singled out the government and commercial healthcare markets as a key focus for the contractor when it announced in January the mega-merger with Lockheed Martin’s IT and services segment to double in projected annual revenue from $5 billion to $10 billion.

Of that $10 billion, Leidos expects to generate nearly one-third of that in its health and engineering sector with 40 percent in government and 60 percent in commercial.

Leidos’ lead role on the “Dim Sum” military electronic health record contract figures as a core component of that strategy alongside other technology-related and services work Leidos provides to federal civilian agencies and hospital networks.

“DHMSM gives us a new kind of a slugger in the market on the commercial side… and it gives us a different level of credibility with the commercial customers, ” Leidos CEO and three-time Wash100 inductee Roger Krone told investors in February.

THE WEEK’S OTHER TOP GOVCON STORIES