09.21.09
DOR BioPharma has been awarded a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will fund, over a five-year period, the development of formulation and manufacturing processes for vaccines, including RiVax, that are stable at elevated temperatures. The grant will also fund the development of improved thermostable adjuvants expected to result in rapidly acting vaccines that can be given with fewer injections over shorter intervals.
The formulation and process technology funded by the grant will be applied to the further development of RiVax, a subunit vaccine for prevention of ricin toxin lethality and morbidity. The grant will also address the development of manufacturing processes and animal model systems for the preclinical characterization of vaccine formulations. Further, the grant will fund the concurrent development of at least one other protein subunit vaccine. This could lead to new subunit vaccines that would bypass current cold chain requirements for storage and distribution.
"The novel technology supported by this grant will potentially develop new vaccines to address the practical issue of long-term stability in stockpiled vaccines and can subsequently be applied to other vaccine products," said Robert N. Brey, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of DOR. "These new vaccines could be stored for long periods of time at ambient temperature, and avoid the current need for a well-controlled environmental cold chain. This would result in more useful vaccines for both civilian and military purposes."
The formulation and process technology funded by the grant will be applied to the further development of RiVax, a subunit vaccine for prevention of ricin toxin lethality and morbidity. The grant will also address the development of manufacturing processes and animal model systems for the preclinical characterization of vaccine formulations. Further, the grant will fund the concurrent development of at least one other protein subunit vaccine. This could lead to new subunit vaccines that would bypass current cold chain requirements for storage and distribution.
"The novel technology supported by this grant will potentially develop new vaccines to address the practical issue of long-term stability in stockpiled vaccines and can subsequently be applied to other vaccine products," said Robert N. Brey, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of DOR. "These new vaccines could be stored for long periods of time at ambient temperature, and avoid the current need for a well-controlled environmental cold chain. This would result in more useful vaccines for both civilian and military purposes."