Monday, December 1, 2008

EpiVax wins $390K grant for HIV vaccine delivery system

By Marc Songini

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is awarding Providence, R.I.-based biotech company EpiVax Inc. $390,000 to assist with the creation of an HIV vaccine.

EpiVax announced last week that NIAID had made the award, which will be spread over two years. More specifically, the funding will enable EpiVax to develop an innovative pro-inflammatory and non-tolerogenic HIV vaccine delivery system, based on a specific antibody.

The recent failure of Phase 2 tests for HIV vaccine and delivery in the STEP trial run by Merck & Co. indicated that traditional approaches to creating an HIV vaccine are ineffective, noted Anne De Groot, CEO of EpiVax, in a statement. That’s why it’s necessary for the EpiVax method of “outside the box” thinking. She noted that worldwide, 50 million people have been infected with HIV and 20 million have died from AIDS.

The NIAID is a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This new grant is the fifth one awarded to EpiVax by the NIH or a foundation in the prior year. In July, NIH awarded EpiVax $600,000 to develop a treatment for type 1 diabetes. The total amount awarded to the company this year has been $2.5 million.

EpiVax’s approach to developing its technologies includes merging in vitro immunology research with bioinformatics. This will allow it to create new therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases, along with vaccines for infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis.