NIAID awards Sanaria an SBIR Grant for expediting its malaria vaccine manufacturing process

Sep 16 2009

Sanaria Inc. has received additional support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health in the form of a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant. The award for two years is $1.99 million. Subject to satisfactory progress by Sanaria, continued funding for a third year will bring the total to nearly $3 million. This new funding will facilitate efforts to increase the efficiency and scale-up of manufacturing and release processes to the levels required for Phase 3 clinical testing, licensure, and commercial launch of Sanaria(TM) PfSPZ, Sanaria's attenuated whole parasite malaria sporozoite vaccine.

Sanaria(TM) PfSPZ Vaccine entered Phase 1 clinical trials of safety and efficacy at the Naval Medical Research Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Vaccine Development in the spring of 2009. Since 2003, peer-reviewed NIAID SBIR grants have provided Sanaria with over $17 million in financial support.