GenVec, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, has received a phase I Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the company's Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine programme.

The SBIR grant, valued at approximately $590,000, will provide funding to further understand the impact of maternal immunity against RSV on the generation of a protective immune response in newborns. This is an important factor in the development of an effective vaccine for the paediatric population.

"These funds will be used to further advance our novel paediatric RSV vaccine. RSV has long been recognized as a priority target for vaccine development, and our program has the potential to address this significant unmet medical need," said Jason Gall, PhD, senior director of research and head of GenVec's RSV programme.

RSV is the single most important viral cause of lower respiratory infections in infants and young children and there is no approved vaccine. According to the World Health Organization, nearly all US children have been infected with RSV by two years of age. Although a majority of RSV infections are usually mild, the infection can result in severe lower respiratory tract infection due to bronchiolitis and pneumonia in infants less than 1 year old, which causes up to 130,000 paediatric hospitalizations per year in the US. RSV also causes repeated infections throughout life, placing the elderly and individuals with compromised cardiac, pulmonary, or immune systems at risk for severe disease. Among the institutionalized elderly, it is estimated there are about 10,000 deaths annually from RSV.

GenVec is a biopharmaceutical company using differentiated, proprietary technologies to create superior therapeutics and vaccines. A key component of our strategy is to develop and commercialize our product candidates through collaborations.