MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 5, 2005--SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development organization, today announced it is working with DOR BioPharma, Inc. (AMEX:DOR) and Cambrex Corporation (NYSE:CBM) to develop a recombinant vaccine, RiVax(TM), for protection against exposure to the ricin toxin, a potential biothreat agent. In September 2004, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a unit of the National Institutes of Health, awarded DOR BioPharma a Challenge Grant for process development, scale-up and cGMP manufacturing of RiVax.
DOR BioPharma licensed the potential vaccine, which is a nontoxic modification of the ricin toxin, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. DOR recently announced positive interim results from its ongoing Phase I clinical trial of RiVax, which is the first ricin toxin vaccine to be clinically tested in humans. The NIAID grant awarded to DOR BioPharma supports process development and large-scale manufacturing being conducted by Cambrex. SRI will optimize the immune response to the vaccine and perform preclinical safety testing to meet requirements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for efficacy and safety studies.
