MRIGlobal awarded $3 million contract to provide HPV vaccine

MRIGlobal today announced that it has been awarded a $3 million contract amendment from the National Cancer Institute's PREVENT Cancer Program to provide a vaccine for the Human Papillomavirus or HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. MRIGlobal will lead a team that will produce the vaccine to be used in a Phase I clinical trial.

HPV can cause genital warts and cancer; it is so common that nearly all sexually active adults get it at some point in their lives. High-risk strains of the virus are responsible for the deaths of 250,000 women worldwide annually; low-risk strains cause warts in 30 million patients.

Current HPV vaccines protect against HPV16 and HPV18, two strains of the virus that are responsible for about 70 percent of the cases of cervical cancer. This contract calls for the production of a specific vaccine known as RG1-VLP, a promising next-generation vaccine with broad efficacy against the 14 virus strains responsible for the remaining 30 percent of cervical cancers. In early studies, this particular vaccine shows promise in cross-protecting against almost all high-risk and low-risk mucosal and cutaneous HPV types.

"This research aligns with the MRIGlobal mission," said Thomas M. Sack, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of MRIGlobal. "It will contribute to the reduction of cancer, improved cancer survival rates, and enable a better quality of life for cancer patients. It can have significant impact on global health."

"We are excited to be involved in one of the first vaccine research programs being supported by the National Cancer Institute to help prevent cervical cancer," said Roger K. Harris, Ph.D., Associate Vice President, Global Health Security.