Immunovaccine Inc., a clinical stage immunotherapy and vaccine company, is expanding its collaboration with Leidos to develop preventative malaria vaccine candidates.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supported the collaboration from the start, providing a sub-contract to Leido’s malaria vaccine development program. After that collaboration resulted in several preclinical milestones, Leidos and USAID have now chosen the DepoVax-based platform for further development under a new contract extension The extension aims to evaluate malaria vaccine candidates in the preclinical, clinical, and field stages of development. Research performed under the collaboration with Immunovaccine showed that DepoVax-formulated vaccine candidates comprised of promising T and B cell targets demonstrated protection against the malaria parasite delivered by mosquito bites.

“We are very encouraged by what Immunovaccine and Leidos have together accomplished through this collaboration thus far,” said Frederic Ors, chief executive officer of Immunovaccine. “The intrinsic mechanism of action that underscores DepoVax has continued to demonstrate the ability to create targeted immune responses across a broad range of difficult diseases.”