Coley Pharmaceutical Group Announces $5.9M Research Grant From NIH
Tuesday October 21, 8:34 am ET
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Award for Development of Drugs Against Bioterror Agents
WELLESLEY, Mass., Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Coley Pharmaceutical Group, Inc. today announced it has been awarded a $5.88M grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to support the development of novel inhaled drug products for broad-spectrum defense against bioterror agents. The funds will be used to perform basic research and preclinical studies of the Company's immunostimulatory CpG TLR9 agonists. Coley has identified three major classes of TLR9 agonist compounds that have different immune stimulatory effects, all of which appear to stimulate some protective immunity against potential bioterror germs such as anthrax and plague in mice. The funds will enable Coley to test which of these classes provides the best activation of immune defenses against bioterror agents, and to perform preclinical development of a lead molecule.
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The funds were awarded from the NIAID's BioDefense Partnerships program, which encourages private industry to work with academic collaborators for the development of new drugs to protect against potential biowarfare attacks. The grant will be administered and led by Coley's Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Arthur M. Krieg, and includes funds to support the testing of Coley's compounds against bioterror agents in mouse, sheep, pig, and primate animal models that have been developed by collaborating investigators at the University of New Mexico, the University of Michigan, University of California-Davis, University of Saskatoon, and Great Britain's Ministry of Defense laboratories at Porton Down.
"This funding from NIAID will enable us to evaluate the potential of our lead drugs for protecting civilian populations from the threat of bioterror attack, without distracting us from our core focus on the development of effective immunotherapeutics for cancer and chronic infectious diseases," commented Robert L. Bratzler, Ph.D., Coley President and Chief Executive Officer. "The Department of Defense has previously awarded Coley a series of contracts to develop our CpG TLR9 agonists for protecting troops from biowarfare attack, and we can now expand our efforts to include the protection of civilian populations."
Based on mouse studies performed by several scientific groups, Coley believes that one or more of its lead compounds will stimulate a very broad spectrum of immune defenses capable of protecting against exposure to most bioterror agents for at least two weeks after a single dose. With repeat dosing, the company believes it may be possible to achieve sustained protection for many months, with very little or no significant side effects. In previous studies supported by the Department of Defense, Coley's proprietary CpG TLR9 agonists had been shown to protect mice against large doses of a wide variety of pathogens, including anthrax, Ebola virus, influenza, and vaccinia virus, a virus that is related to smallpox. The development of an inhaled product that could be used to protect humans would require additional work before it would become generally available.
"We have made tremendous progress in the last few years in developing immune stimulation as a successful approach for protecting mice from lethal doses of most potential bioterror agents," stated Dr. Arthur Krieg, Coley's Chief Scientific Officer. "This grant from NIAID will enable us to determine why our TLR9 agonists are so effective in mice, and should make it possible for us to transition this into larger animals, in preparation for clinical development."
About Coley Pharmaceutical Group
Coley Pharmaceutical Group is developing several classes of targeted immunoregulatory drugs with broad potential applications in cancers, asthma, allergy and infectious diseases. Coley's CpG TLR9 agonists activate the human immune system to prevent or fight disease. Coley's lead anti-cancer candidate, ProMune(TM), is being studied in Phase II trials for several different cancer indications; CpG 10101, Coley's lead anti-viral candidate, is being developed for the treatment of Hepatitis C; and CpG 7279 is being developed with Aventis Pharmaceuticals as part of a development and licensing agreement for the treatment of asthma and allergic rhinitis. In addition to the Aventis partnership, Coley has two license agreements with GlaxoSmithKline for the use of certain CpG TLR9 agonists in specified preventive and therapeutic infectious disease vaccines and certain therapeutic cancer vaccines. Coley is a private company with operations in the United States, Germany and Canada. For further information, please visit www.coleypharma.com. |
