InViragen, LLC, a biotechnology company dedicated to developing vaccines for emerging infectious diseases worldwide, has entered into an exclusive patent license agreement with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The announcement is made by Dr Dan Stinchcomb, InViragen's CEO, whose company received the Colorado Bioscience Association (CBSA), Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade's Venture Showcase Award last year.
The licensed technology is applicable to vaccines against multiple viral diseases, including dengue fever and West Nile disease. Dengue fever threatens 2.5 billion people worldwide as well as travellers to tropical countries. West Nile virus has caused thousands of debilitating fevers since its introduction in North America.
"The scientists at the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases (DVBID) of the CDC used innovative molecular biology to create novel vaccines to protect against dengue fever and West Nile disease," said Dr Jorge Osorio, InViragen's Chief Scientific Officer. "They have shown that these vaccines are safe and effective in key animal models. InViragen is working with the scientists at DVBID and international collaborators to move these needed vaccines through human clinical trials and regulatory approval."
Dengue fever, a major health problem in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America and parts of Africa, is a serious risk for travellers to those regions as well. Dengue fever is caused by infection with one of four different RNA viruses: DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 or DEN-4. To be safe and effective, dengue vaccines must be capable of neutralizing all four of the dengue viruses. The technology developed by DVBID is based on a virus backbone that was shown to be safe and to generate long-lasting immune responses in phase 1 clinical trials. Using this technology, InViragen is developing a four-way vaccine to protect against all four of the different viruses that cause dengue fever.
A single mosquito-borne RNA virus, West Nile virus, causes West Nile disease, a significant public health concern. Since its emergence in New York in 1999, West Nile virus has caused over 16,000 documented human cases of disease and over 600 deaths in the US. Using the same vaccine technology developed for the dengue vaccine, scientists at DVBID engineered a novel West Nile vaccine and demonstrated that the vaccine is safe and protects mice from West Nile virus.
"Obtaining this exclusive license from the CDC is an important milestone for InViragen," said Dr Stinchcomb. "The license will permit InViragen to convert the exciting research findings of the DVBID into products that will improve public health worldwide."