Posted on: Monday, 6 October 2008, 09:00 CDT
Netherlands-based biopharmaceutical company Crucell has received a National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/National Institutes of Health contract aimed at advancing the development of a multivalent filovirus vaccine that includes both Ebola and Marburg viruses.
The contract provides funding of up to $30 million, with additional options that may be triggered at the discretion of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) worth a further $40 million.
Crucell will be the primary contractor with additional services being supplied by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, located in San Antonio, Texas and Quintiles Guys Drug Research Unit, located in London.
Jaap Goudsmit, chief scientific officer of Crucell, said: "We are grateful to the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)/NIH for this award, which makes use of Crucell's proprietary AdVac technology. This award recognizes the scientific basis for using rare adenovirus serotypes to develop vaccines."
"The contract builds upon earlier work Crucell has performed with the vaccine research center at NIH, and brings us a step closer to being able to provide effective countermeasures against a highly lethal infectious disease."
Source: Datamonitor