AVANT Immunotherapeutics and Select Vaccines Announce Partnership to Develop Improved Viral Vaccines
Monday February 12, 7:30 am ET
Novel Virus-Like Particle Technology to be Initially Applied to Influenza Vaccines
NEEDHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAN - News) and Select Vaccines Limited (ASX: SLT - News), an Australian biotechnology company, today announced a research and development (R&D) partnership focused on the use of Select Vaccines' virus-like particles (VLPs) as a platform technology for the development of viral vaccines. The R&D efforts will initially target the development of vaccines against influenza including both epidemic and pandemic forms of vaccine, with the opportunity to expand the collaboration to other disease targets. In preclinical studies, Select Vaccines has demonstrated proof-of-principle for expressing vaccine antigens on Select VLPs with approximately 10 different antigens. Completion of the partnership agreement is subject to the approval of Select's shareholders.
"Select Vaccines' novel virus-like particles due to their specific size have the potential to generate stronger immune responses than current VLP-based vaccines," commented Una S. Ryan, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc. "The Select Vaccine technology is particularly promising for addressing viral disease targets, which complements AVANT's bacterial vaccine pipeline and allows AVANT to more fully address the total vaccine market, which industry experts estimate will exceed $20 billion by 2010."
Under the terms of the agreement, AVANT will make an upfront equity investment in Select Vaccines and fund influenza vaccine R&D for two years, as well as provide payments to Select Vaccines for the achievement of specific preclinical and clinical development milestones. AVANT also gains the exclusive right to apply Select Vaccines' technology to a second target within the next two years, and a third target within the next three years. Select Vaccines would also be eligible to receive royalties based on net sales of any approved products arising out of this collaboration that are successfully marketed.
"We are very pleased to partner with AVANT Immunotherapeutics on the application of our VLP platform technology to this major commercial opportunity," said Martin Soust, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Select Vaccines Limited. "The expression of influenza antigens identified by AVANT on Select VLPs could provide a novel vaccine candidate, distinct from other influenza VLP vaccine candidates, and could potentially stimulate a stronger immune response."
About Select Vaccines' Virus-Like Particles
Virus-like particles (VLPs) in their second-generation application are constructs that can be engineered to carry foreign antigens on their surface and mimic viruses in their ability to stimulate strong immune responses, in this case against foreign antigens. Two types of licensed vaccines (hepatitis B and human papilloma virus vaccines) and several vaccine candidates employ first-generation VLP technology, thus providing proof-of-concept for this approach to vaccine delivery.
"Select Vaccines has developed novel VLPs that differ from previous approaches in several ways that suggest they may offer a particularly robust and flexible platform for vaccine development," said Ronald W. Ellis, Ph.D., AVANT's Senior Vice President, R&D. First, Select VLPs have a specific size and assembly process different from other VLPs which enables the expression of much larger vaccine antigens than can be expressed on other types of VLPs and also offers the prospect for distinctive antigen processing. At the same time, Select VLPs are themselves more weakly immunogenic than other VLPs, which should better focus the induced antibody response on the expressed vaccine antigen instead of on the VLP carrier itself." A further benefit of Select's technology is the ability to manufacture their VLPs in yeast, thus doing away with the need to grow flu vaccines in eggs, a slow, time-consuming and inefficient process.
Market Opportunity for Influenza Vaccines
The global influenza vaccine market is projected to grow to as much as 370 million doses with a value of $3.7 billion by 2010, up from an estimated $1.3 billion in the 2003-2004 season as a result of commercial drivers encouraging higher influenza vaccine availability in the near to long term. The U.S. market alone will potentially account for 176 million doses and $1.8 billion in value by 2010.(1) |
