Oct 14 2009
Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX) announced today that it has received a Small Business and Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant from the NIAID is to support a segment of the Company's preclinical research program for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) particle-based vaccine. RSV is the most commonly identified cause of lower respiratory tract illnesses in infants and young children. It also infects more than 8.5 million adults annually, causing severe pneumonia in older adults over age 65.
As previously announced, Novavax has an RSV vaccine candidate in preclinical development, which is directed against a protein on the surface of the virus, the "F" or "fusion" protein. The virus uses the F protein to infect and fuse with cells in the respiratory tract and cause disease. This RSV-F vaccine candidate has been shown to protect mice against RSV disease and can be produced at sufficient yields and high purity to allow commercial manufacture.
The SBIR grant, valued at approximately $246,000, will support continued preclinical development of the RSV-F vaccine candidate utilizing the bovine calf model. Calves are susceptible to RSV and have illnesses similar to those seen in human infants with RSV. Thus, the data from studies in calves have the potential to be of great value in development of an RSV vaccine for the pediatric population.
"We appreciate this grant provided by NIAID," said Dr. Rahul Singhvi, President and CEO of Novavax. "This funding will further support preclinical studies that may be especially important for development of our RSV vaccine in children, for whom no vaccines are currently available," said Dr. Singhvi.
SOURCE Novavax, Inc.
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