Contract is potentially worth $22 million over the next four years.

SAIC-Frederick will pay GenVec $2.6 million over the next year for the development of influenza and HIV vaccines. The four-year contract has a total value of over $22 million if all options are exercised.

Work under this contract will include generation of HIV vaccine candidates and of a universal flu vaccine candidate. GenVec will also faciliate process and assay development for the manufacture of vaccine candidates for clinical testing. The vaccines will comprise genetic material supplied by the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), which is part of the NIAID, and adenoviral vectors supplied from GenVec.

Additionally, the new contract will support HIV vaccine candidates currently in clinical testing under a collaboration between GenVec and VRC. In September NIAID executed its third option period (year four) under a previously announced contract that could span five years and is valued at up to $52 million. GenVec will receive up to $2.3 million for the fourth year.

VRC is managing the clinical development of this program, and the vaccine candidate (VRC-HIVADV014-00VP) is being evaluated alone and in combination with a plasmid DNA vaccine prime. In October 2005, VRC initiated a Phase II trial, and six Phase I studies have completed enrollment, with over 50 participants receiving the adenovector vaccine candidate.

The vaccine candidate is designed to protect against the three most common types of HIV-1 virus found around the world, clades A, B, and C. The vaccine candidate utilizes GenVec’s proprietary adenovector delivery technology and 293-ORF6 production cell line and is designed to generate a broad spectrum of immune responses including neutralizing antibodies and cytolytic T-cell immunity.

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