REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Maxygen, Inc. today announced that it has been awarded grants and a contract totaling $14.4 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the United States Department of Defense to advance research for development of a preventative HIV vaccine. The NIH has awarded Maxygen two competitive grants including $11.7 million over 5 years as part of the HIV Research and Development program (HIVRAD) and a Phase I grant from the NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Maxygen was also awarded a contract of $2.4 million from the Department of Defense for HIV vaccine discovery.
The HIVRAD grant provides funds for the use of Maxygen’s MolecularBreeding(TM) directed evolution platform to generate novel HIV-1 antigens potentially capable of inducing broad antibody responses to multiple strains of the HIV-1 virus. The SBIR award will fund investigations into the effect on immunogenicity of secondary modifications to a specific HIV-1 envelope protein. The contract from the Department of Defense will fund work to develop a high-throughput vaccine screening platform. Maxygen anticipates working in collaboration with Monogram Biosciences and Aldevron LLC with respect to these government- funded projects.
“While Maxygen is focusing its resources on the advancement of its protein pharmaceutical product candidates, we believe that our MolecularBreeding(TM) directed molecular evolution technologies hold great promise for the development of novel vaccines,” said Russell Howard, CEO of Maxygen. “We are pleased to be able to advance our work in HIV vaccine discovery with government grant and contract funding. Maxygen has demonstrated the ability to improve key attributes of experimental vaccines to make them more effective against multiple pathogen strains in laboratory studies. We hope to translate our past success in the laboratory into a much needed broadly-protective HIV vaccine.”
About HIV
The HIV-1 epidemic has resulted in approximately 5 million new infections in 2004 for a total of 40 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS. A preventative vaccine is urgently needed to reduce the continued spread of this deadly disease. Most experts agree that a vaccine that induces antibodies to protect against multiple strains of the HIV virus will be an essential part of a public health strategy to combat the spread of HIV.
About Maxygen
Maxygen, Inc., headquartered in Redwood City, California, is focused on the development of superior versions of validated major protein pharmaceuticals. Maxygen’s technologies bring together advances in molecular biology and protein modification to create novel biotechnology products. The Company has over 120 U.S. and foreign patents relating to its MolecularBreeding directed evolution platform.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements about our research and business prospects, including those relating to: our ability to generate novel HIV-1 antigens capable of inducing broad antibody responses to various strains of the HIV-1 virus; the ability of our technologies to overcome the key challenge of enormous natural diversity in the HIV envelope protein; our ability to discover novel vaccines, including a broadly-protective HIV vaccine and our ability to create novel biotechnology products. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in these statements. Among other things these risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: changing research and business priorities of Maxygen and/or its collaborators; the inherent uncertainties of biological research; and competitors producing superior products. These and other risk factors are more fully discussed in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004, including under the caption “Risk Factors,” and in our other periodic SEC reports, all of which are available from Maxygen at www.maxygen.com. Maxygen disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement contained in this release as a result of new information or future events or developments. MolecularBreeding, Maxygen and the Maxygen logo are trademarks of Maxygen, Inc.
Maxygen, Inc.
CONTACT: Jeannine Medeiros, Investor and Public Relations for Maxygen,+1-650-298-5853, or fax, +1-650-364-2715
Web site: http://www.maxygen.com/
