Purdue Research Foundation Licenses New Flu Vaccine Candidate to PaxVax
Posted on: Wednesday, 2 May 2007, 09:00 CDT
Purdue Research Foundation announced today that it has licensed a technology to PaxVax Inc. that uses a harmless virus as a bird flu vaccine as well as a vaccine delivery platform.
The foundation's Office of Technology Commercialization granted the license to PaxVax Inc., a privately held San Diego-based corporation. The adenovirus-based vaccine technology is genetically modified to transport an extra gene related to the influenza virus. That gene produces a protein in the host's cells, which triggers an immune response against bird flu. The process to earn approval for this vaccine through Food and Drug Administration-regulated human clinical trials has not yet begun.
The proprietary technology also involves utilizing the adenovirus as a vaccine delivery system or transmitting agent capable of targeting other diseases.
"Our priority in the coming year is to bring this project forward to clinical trials to address the need for vaccines against bird flu as well as to expand our vaccine platform," said Daniel R. Henderson, Ph.D., CEO of PaxVax. "We believe that this important license gives PaxVax exclusive rights to develop adenovirus vector-based vaccines encoding bird flu antigens."
Developed through collaborative efforts by researchers at Purdue University's School of Veterinary Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the intellectual property involves the genetic modification of the adenovirus, said Suresh Mittal, a Purdue molecular virologist who led the team of scientists. The adenovirus is modified further to render it unable to replicate itself.
"An adenovirus vector-based vaccine has the promise of providing long-lasting and broad immunity against multiple strains of the virus," said Mittal, a professor of veterinary pathobiology with Purdue's Department of Comparative Pathobiology. "It also can be mass-produced much more quickly than by current methods."
The research was funded with a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
About Purdue Research Foundation
On behalf of Purdue University (http://www.purdue.edu), the Purdue Research Foundation (http://www.prf.org) operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. In 2006, the foundation issued 30 patents, granted 97 licenses and options, and received $3.8 million in royalty payments. The foundation also owns and manages the nationally-acclaimed Purdue Research Park, home to the largest cluster of technology-related companies in Indiana.
Source: Business Wire
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