RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- AlphaVax announced
today that it has received a new three-year, $4.8 million vaccine development
grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) of
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
The award covers early development of a vaccine against SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome), a new infectious disease that first appeared in 2003 in
Asia and spread rapidly to other parts of the world, infecting over 8000
people. In addition to proving highly infectious, SARS also incurred a high
mortality rate, killing 10% of the people it infected. Although ultimately
checked through energetic public health measures, the disease had a severe
economic impact, estimated at as much as $10 billion. In Toronto alone, where
quarantine restrictions adversely affected travel and tourism, the SARS
outbreak was responsible for losses of $1 billion to the city. Since there is
no current cure or protective vaccine, the identification and development of
novel medicines and vaccines have received a high priority by governments and
public health agencies around the world.
"We are gratified to receive this important new award," said Jonathan
Smith, Ph.D., AlphaVax Chief Scientific Officer and Principal Investigator for
the new grant. "Together with all our other peer-reviewed NIH-funded vaccine
programs, this reflects the significant potential our technology has to
generate new vaccines against many of the diseases that represent the most
important challenges to public health -- whether long-established or new and
emergent threats -- including the significant threat represented by SARS."
AlphaVax scientists collaborated with the Centers of Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta and with Southern Research Institute in Birmingham,
Alabama, during the course of the 2003 epidemic and their work on SARS.
AlphaVax has four additional active NIH-supported vaccine development
grants supporting programs in HIV and biodefense. In addition, the company
and its other academic and industry partners are working on diseases like
herpes, human papilloma virus (the principal cause of cervical cancer), other
viral respiratory infections, and cancer.
About AlphaVax
AlphaVax, Inc. is a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of
vaccines based on its innovative technology, called the ArV(TM) system, for
AlphaVax replicon Vector technology. AlphaVax draws its candidate vaccine
vectors from alphaviruses, a family of viruses that demonstrate biological
properties with particularly promising potential for novel vaccines against
both infectious disease and cancer. The technology was originally developed by
USAMRIID and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. AlphaVax is
located in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and now employs 55 people.
More information about the Company can be found at its
website: http://www.alphavax.com
