SBIR-STTR Award

Developing nations rely on poultry as their major protein source. Maintaining poultry health is of critical importance to good human nutrition worldwide. Infectious bursal disease is a contagious immunosuppressive disease affecting nearly all poultry producing regions of the world. The disease is caused by infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) a bi-segmented double-stranded RNA virus. Vaccination of breeder flocks to produce maternal immunity in the chicks is used to control IBD. Control efforts are complicated by frequent genetic mutations, reassorting of genome segments and genetic recombination that can increase virulence and alter antigenicity which renders vaccines ineffective. The current practice of producing inactivated IBDV vaccines using virus grown in chicks is expensive and time consuming. We have demonstrated that in vitro production of multivalent virus-like-particles (VLPs) has the potential to solve these problems. The objectives of this project are to determine the optimal dosage of IBDV-VLP vaccines containing VP2 proteins from multiple antigenic strains of the virus and to complete safety and efficacy studies required for licensure by the USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics.

Safe and affordable food is an important part of human health and wellness. The worldwide food animal industry, anchored by research and new product innovation in the US, produces high quality proteins that are part of a healthy diet and an essential food source for human populations worldwide. Diseases that affect food animals threaten the safety and quantity of this protein source. LARAD was established to apply proprietary virus-like-particle (VLP) technology to the development of vaccines and diagnostics for food animal diseases. VLPs are structurally analogous to viruses but they do not contain any genetic material; they are essentially empty protein shells. In this Phase II application we have targeted three animal diseases where vaccines have become ineffective due to mutations that have lead to antigenic drift in the viruses; two are poultry diseases caused by infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) and avian reovirus (ARV) and the third is a disease of fish caused by infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV). All three viruses cause economically devastating diseases. The LARAD VLP technology, developed by the Co-PD at The Ohio State University and exclusively licensed by LARAD, is innovative because it allows us to produce vaccines that easily keep pace with mutating viruses. At the end of this Phase II project we expect to have our IBDV-VLP platform licensed by the CVB and two more VLP vaccine products ready for Phase III commercialization. Sales from our IBDV-VLP platform vaccine and funds from our vaccine company partners will be used to commercialize the ARV/IBDV-VLP and IPNV-VLP vaccines