Date: Jul 01, 2015 Source: Company Data (
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GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing innovative human vaccines using its novel platform technology, announced today it has received a Notice of Award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health for a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant in support of its clade C HIV vaccine development program for Africa. The grant award of $299,585 is for the first year of a two-year project period beginning July 1, 2015.
The grant, entitled "Directed Lineage Immunizations for Eliciting Broadly Neutralizing Antibody", will support the preclinical testing in non-human primates of a vaccine designed for the clade C subtype of HIV prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. This project will be the first to use GeoVax's vaccine technology for the developing world, and builds on the GeoVax clade B HIV vaccine, GOVX-B11, which is designed for the epidemic in the Americas and Western Europe. GOVX-B11 has shown outstanding safety and reproducible immunogenicity in clinical trials involving 500 people in North and South America and it is anticipated that the clade C vaccine will show similar promise.
"For the clade C vaccine we have capitalized on our platform technology that allows us to express non-infectious virus-like particles (VLPs) in the cells of the person being vaccinated," commented Harriet L. Robinson, Chief Scientific Officer at GeoVax. "HIV is a fragile virus, and easily loses its structure. By producing virus-like particles in the person being vaccinated, we not only save the cost of particle purification but also preserve the natural form of HIV to raise immune responses with the best chance of recognizing and preventing actual HIV infections."
The grant was awarded to Dr. Arban Domi, GeoVax's Director of Vector Development, who will oversee its implementation.
About GeoVax
GeoVax Labs, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing human vaccines against infectious diseases using our novel vaccine platform. Our current development programs are focused on vaccines against Ebola and Marburg viruses, and Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV). We believe our technology and vaccine development expertise is well-suited for a wide variety of human infectious diseases for which there is an unmet medical need, and we intend to pursue expansion of our product pipeline.
Our vaccine platform supports production of non-infectious virus-like particles (VLPs) from the cells of the person receiving the vaccine. Producing non-infectious virus-like particles in the person being vaccinated circumvents the need to purify virus-like particles for inoculation. The production of virus-like particles in the person being vaccinated mimics a natural infection, stimulating both the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system to recognize, prevent and control the target infection should it appear.
Clinical trials for GeoVax's preventive HIV vaccines have been conducted by the US National Institutes of Health-supported HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) with funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). Overall, GeoVax's vaccines, in various doses and combinations, have been tested in 500 humans. For more information, go to www.geovax.com.
