Selecta Biosciences, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing synthetic nanoparticle vaccines and immunotherapies, today announced that it has been awarded a grant for $3 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), an institute within the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant is aimed at advancing the development of an enhanced therapeutic nicotine vaccine for the treatment of smoking cessation and relapse prevention.
“We are delighted that NIDA has recognized the uniqueness and potential advantages of Selecta's synthetic therapeutic vaccines and has elected to support Selecta's tSVP nicotine vaccine, in a very competitive process, to address the enormous unmet medical need of smoking cessation”
The $3 million grant will support the funding of a clinical drug candidate from Selecta's pipeline, and assist with advancing a nicotine vaccine from preclinical through early clinical evaluation. The award is one of a select number of grants provided nationwide by NIH under the unique BRDG-SPAN program (Biomedical Research and Development and Growth To Spur the Acceleration of New Technologies Pilot Program) which is designed to bridge the gap between R&D and commercialization for promising new medical technologies.