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NRI's firm gets $1 million bio-terrorism vaccine contract
Avtar Dhillon, chief of Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a San Diego-based firm will develop the bio-terrorism vaccines.
The US defence department has awarded a $1 million contract to a firm run by an Indian American to develop vaccines against potential bio-terrorism agents.
Avtar Dhillon heads San Diego-based Inovio Biomedical Corporation, a publicly traded company.
The contract is for developing gene delivery electroporation technology for application to vaccination against infectious diseases including potential bio-terrorism agents, the company said.
"We believe that this grant reflects the high level of interest within the vaccine industry and now the government for the potential of the Inovio gene delivery system as well as the strength of our development efforts in the delivery of gene-based vaccines, said Dhillon, Inovio's president and CEO.
"It represents a valuable step forward in commercialising the full spectrum of potential clinical applications for our technology," he added.
The US Congress appropriated the funding in the Defense Appropriations Bill for 2005 and it is a continuation of the first US Army grant received by Inovio AS in Norway last year.
Inovio is working closely on this project with Connie Schmaljohn, a renowned virologist and chief of the Department of Molecular Virology at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Ft. Detrick, Maryland.
Compared to conventional vaccines, DNA vaccines of the kind Inovio is developing, delivered using electroporation, afford several important advantages in enhancing the onset and level of immunity generated, which may be critical in attempting to address threats posed by pandemics or bio-terrorism, the company stated.
Numerous genes can be isolated from potential infectious organisms, sequenced, and then synthesized for vaccination of the population or military in order to induce a protective immune response.
DNA vaccines delivered with electroporation are of interest to the medical community primarily because they provide the advantage of rapid and robust immune responses. They are effective at triggering both enhanced cellular and humoral immune responses (mediated by certain white blood cells and antibodies, respectively) that are difficult to achieve by conventional vaccine technology and provide superior immunity to the antigenic challenge posed by infectious agents.
DNA vaccines can be rapidly manufactured in large quantities using standard bacterial culture media, stored at room temperature, and synthetically produced. Ease of characterization and manufacturing make DNA vaccines amenable to rapid clinical development.
DNA vaccines delivered by electroporation have been shown to effectively reprogramme the immune system to recognize antigens on cancer cells that had not otherwise been recognised. This ability to break immune tolerance is a key feature of this technology and may contribute to the development of vaccines for persistent viral infections.
