NIH awards Atlanta-based firm $15M for HIV vaccine research

NIH has awarded the Atlanta-based firm GeoVax Labs a $15 million grant to further its HIV vaccine research and continue human clinical trials, company officials announced Thursday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

GeoVax is in midstage development of an experimental HIV vaccine and has enrolled about 140 people in four independent national trials of the vaccine. The company said it plans to use the grant to continue vaccine development, production and trials, including Phase II human clinical trials planned for 2008. The funding also will support additional preventive and therapeutic HIV vaccine studies, according to the company.

GeoVax is developing the experimental HIV vaccine in collaboration with Emory University, CDC and NIH. According to Emory officials, a prototype of the vaccine provided long-term protection against development of AIDS in nonhuman primate studies conducted three years ago at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta (Schneider, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/28). Harriet Robinson, chief scientific adviser for GeoVax, added that the grant will allow the company to "move forward our AIDS vaccine evaluation program more efficiently and more rapidly" (GeoVax release, 9/26).