Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB) announced today that it has received a $4.395 million award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a vaccine against H1N1 influenza virus using its plant-based production platform.
“Receiving this competitive grant shows clearly that Fraunhofer is helping lead the way in creating vaccine technology that can protect us against dangerous threats such as bioterrorism and pandemic flu”
This will be the third round of funding from DARPA and follows on CMB’s successful optimization and feasibility studies completed in 2008 and a new, state-of-the-art cGMP pilot manufacturing facility completed at the end of 2009. This current funding will allow CMB’s H1N1 vaccine candidate to progress to Phase 1 clinical trials, therefore validating the utility of the technology for manufacturing products for use in humans.
According to Dr. Vidadi Yusibov, Executive Director of Fraunhofer USA CMB, “Over the past eight years, we have taken our plant-based transient expression system for recombinant protein production from concept, through technical innovations, process improvement, and scale up. While the production platform has been validated by extensive pre-clinical studies, we are looking forward to entering the clinical phase of development.”
The need for alternative manufacturing platforms with rapid response capability became apparent in the past year with the emergence of the H1N1 influenza. DARPA’s interest in developing advanced manufacturing technologies for vaccine production stems from the need to protect military personnel and civilian populations from infections agents.