GenVec, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, announced that it could receive up to $52 million under a new, five-year contract with the exercise of annual renewal options by NIAID, to support the transfer of its manufacturing and purification processes to the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Centre's (VRC) Vaccine Pilot Plant in Frederick, Maryland to further clinical development of an HIV vaccine, including development of a larger-scale manufacturing and product-release process necessary for further HIV vaccine production.

The Vaccine Pilot Plant - a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services - produces materials for clinical research. As a part of this new contract, the VRC has agreed to take a non-exclusive research license to GenVec's proprietary adenovector, production cell line, manufacturing process, and formulation technologies for HIV vaccines allowing for the production of next generation HIV vaccines.

GenVec has collaborated on HIV vaccine development with the VRC for several years under a Collaborative Research and Development agreement utilizing GenVec's adenovector technologies. Under a separate contract, GenVec has produced the adenovector-based HIV vaccine currently in Phase 2 clinical testing at its contract manufacturer, Molecular Medicine BioServices, Inc. Data from recent studies indicate that the vaccine has been well tolerated and, when administered in combination with a DNA plasmid prime, elicits a broad antibody and Tcell immune response.

"GenVec is very encouraged that our technologies continue to show promise as a vaccine for difficult diseases such as HIV," said Dr. Paul H. Fischer, GenVec's president and CEO. "The continued scientific and financial commitment (which could total more than $100 million for GenVec's efforts alone) that the VRC has provided has been extremely beneficial to finding a solution for this disease."