Bavarian Nordic receives NIH grant
To investigate MVA-BN vaccine against Ebola and Marburg viruses
Bavarian Nordic has received funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance its early research in filoviruses (Ebola and Marburg virus) in order to expand its infectious diseases pipeline.
As previously announced, the Danish biotech is investigating the potential use of its core vaccine technology, MVA-BN as a combined vaccine encoding genes for both the Ebola and Marburg strains. The NIH funding will support an animal efficacy study performed in non-human primate, the company said.
Upon evaluation of the initial data from this study, expected next year, Bavarian Nordic will determine the future of this project in its pipeline.
Bavarian Nordic's president and ceo, Anders Hedegaard, said: ‘We have already successfully advanced the development our Imvamune smallpox vaccine under a fully funded programme from the US government and with continued support and funding from the US authorities we are committed to developing innovative vaccines against other potential biological weapons such as anthrax, Ebola and Marburg as well.’
Bavarian Nordic’s clinical pipeline targets cancer and infectious diseases, and includes seven development programmes.