Wednesday September 19, 6:01 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Epicyte Receives CalTIP Grant to Fund Plantibody
Product Development
California Grant for Epicyte to Develop Sexual Health Products
SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--Sept. 19, 2001--Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc. today
announced that the Company has been awarded a grant from the California Technology
Investment Partnership (CalTIP) for the development of Plantibody(TM) products to prevent
the sexual transmission of viral infections. The CalTIP grant, valued at $150,000, will help
support Epicyte's greenhouse facilities and staff as well as marketing studies for the products.
The marketing and acceptability studies will be completed in conjunction with investigators at
the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health.
The California Technology Investment partnership is a competitive grant program that
provides funding to California companies to accelerate commercialization of their innovative
products. The program helps leverage federal funds. Epicyte currently has three Small
Business Innovative Research/Advanced Technology (SBIR-AT) grants from the NIH for
the development of sexual health products.
``The receipt of this grant from the State of California provides further momentum to the
Epicyte product pipeline that uses Plantibodies(TM) technology to prevent the transmission
of Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV), Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV),'' said Kevin Whaley, Director of Antibody Discovery at
Epicyte. ``There are currently no vaginal microbicides available to prevent the sexual
transmission of pathogens and we are committed to developing products that prevent these
diseases.''
``Microbicides will have a significant impact in California and the world since they will help
individuals to maintain sexual and reproductive health by preventing the sexual transmission of
pathogens,'' said Dr. Bethany Holt Young, Director of the California Microbicide Initiative
(CaMI) and a co-investigator on this study at UC Berkeley. ``The state's support through the
CalTIP program for innovative and critical technology is important to the continued
development of microbicides in California.'' The California Microbicide Initiative is a
consortium of companies and public health advocates that promote the development of
microbicides.
Each year an estimated 15 million new sexually transmitted infections occur among Americans over the age of 15. Over $8.4
billion is spent annually in the United States to treat the short- and long-term consequences of sexually transmitted diseases.
Epicyte's Plantibodies(TM) technology can be used to produce unlimited quantities of pharmaceutical-grade human antibodies
and related molecules in plants. Manufacturing antibodies in plants holds great appeal because monoclonal antibodies are the
largest product segment in biotechnology. Current antibody production has limited capacity and is an expensive process, with
costs to scale-up the manufacture of antibodies approaching $400 million per facility. Epicyte's Plantibodies(TM) technology
turns agricultural plants into antibody factories, enabling the production of antibodies and related molecules at prices
considerably lower than traditional animal cell culture-based systems, while also significantly reducing manufacturing capital
requirements.
Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc., founded in 1996, is a San Diego-based company developing antibody products for infectious
disease and sexual health using its Plantibody(TM) technology. The company has extensive intellectual property for production
of antibodies in plants licensed from The Scripps Research Institute. More information about Epicyte is available at
www.epicyte.com.
Contact:
Epicyte Pharmaceutical, Inc.
Christopher Clement, Chief Executive Officer
858/554-0281
cclement@epicyte.com
or
Susan E. Atkins & Associates
Anette Breindl, Ph.D., 858/860-0266
abreindl@irpr.com |
