Maxygen Awarded $3.7 Million USAID Grant For Vaccine Research.(Brief Article)

2001 NOV 14 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Maxygen Inc. has received a $3.7 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to support the research and development of a novel, broadly protective malaria vaccine. Under the terms of the agreement, Maxygen will retain worldwide rights to commercialize successful vaccine candidates that result from the program.

The creation of a novel and effective vaccine is critical in the fight against the spread of malaria, a disease that kills an average of one child every thirty seconds. Malaria has reached epidemic proportions in many tropical countries and is a major health concern for millions of international business and tourist travelers as well as military personnel. Many diseases such as HIV, influenza, and malaria evade the immune system by continuously changing any surface antigens exposed to the immune system defenses. Immunization with a single form of such antigens might protect against subsequent reinfection with the same viral strain, but usually offers little protection against infection with the hundreds to thousands of variant strains that express alternative forms of such antigens.

"Maxygen's proprietary gene shuffling technology allows us to blend the desired properties of many parental genes, generating antigens that express parts of many different pathogen variants," said Russell Howard, PhD, chief executive officer of Maxygen. "Early results in some infectious disease models give us confidence that such novel antigens will generate broad immune responses that may protect immunized people against many viral strains of the relevant disease. USAID has been committed to malaria vaccine development for some time and is involved in numerous malaria vaccine trials employing diverse technologies and antigens. The award of this grant to Maxygen by USAID validates Maxygen's novel approach for the identification and development of improved vaccines."

"Maxygen's vaccine and ...