U.S. awards $15 million grant to HIV/AIDS vaccine program
Funding commences in October 2007.
IPCAVD grants are awarded on a competitive basis and are designed to support later-stage vaccine research, development and human trials.
Only meritorious HIV/AIDS prevention vaccine candidates are considered for an IPCAVD award. Candidate companies are highly scrutinized and must supply substantial positive AIDS vaccine data to support their applications.
Dr. Harriet Robinson, Chief Scientific Advisor for GeoVax, guided development of the IPCAVD proposal and will lead a major part of its related studies.
GeoVax will utilize the funding to further its HIV/AIDS vaccine development, optimization, production and human clinical trial testing, including Phase 2 human clinical trials planned for 2008.
The GeoVax DNA vaccine is designed to prevent development of Acquired Immunodeficiency Disease (AIDS), caused by the virus known as HIV-1, by vaccinating individuals prior to infection with the AIDS virus and “priming” their immune responses. In addition, GeoVax Recombinant MVA vaccine may be effective as a therapeutic treatment for people already infected with AIDS by “boosting” their immune responses against the AIDS virus.
The vaccines address more than 50 percent of AIDS virus components and cannot cause AIDS. The vaccines have been demonstrated safe to date in human trials and are showing positive immune responses against HIV in a majority of vaccine recipients. Further studies evaluating these vaccines in already HIV/AIDS-infected individuals are planned.
The vaccines are manufactured and tested under GMP/GLP-EMEA (EU) and FDA guidelines and protected by 20 filed patent applications and issued patents.