© 2023 MJH Life Sciences™ and Infection Control Today. All rights reserved.
SAN DIEGO -- Vical Incorporated announces that it has received notification of funding of approximately $1 million for research and development related to the company's plasmid DNA vaccine against cytomegalovirus (CMV) under two grants from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH).
A six-month Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant of
approximately $300,000 will partially fund preclinical safety and toxicity
evaluation of the CMV vaccine in support of the company's planned Phase I
human trial. An 18-month research grant of approximately $700,000 will
partially fund novel assays to measure and characterize immune responses in
volunteers participating in the trial. The trial and immunological assays
will be conducted in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center in Seattle.
"We are pleased to receive notification of NIH funding to support
continued development of our CMV vaccine," said Vical's president and CEO, Vijay Samant, "which could help address the significant
unmet need to prevent this serious disease, for which no vaccine is either
approved or in late-stage development. The Institute of Medicine of the
National Academy of Sciences has estimated the annual cost of treating CMV
infection in the United States at more than $4 billion. CMV infection affects
an estimated 30 to 60 percent of the estimated 29,000 patients receiving bone
marrow or solid organ transplants in the U.S. annually, causing transplant
rejection, serious illness and even death if untreated. Expensive antiviral
drug therapy is used to control the disease, but does not prevent or eliminate
the infection. CMV infection causes severe consequences in about 3,600
infants and death in about 400 each year in the U.S. We look forward to
beginning our initial clinical trial in healthy volunteers in 2004."
Vical researches and develops biopharmaceutical products based on its
patented DNA delivery technologies for the prevention and treatment of serious
or life-threatening diseases. Potential applications of the company's DNA
delivery technology include DNA vaccines for infectious diseases or cancer, in
which the expressed protein is an immunogen; cancer immunotherapeutics, in
which the expressed protein is an immune system stimulant; and cardiovascular
therapies, in which the expressed protein is an angiogenic growth factor. The
company has retained all rights to its internally developed product
candidates.
Source: Vical Incorporated