iBio Receives Rights Grant for Anthrax-Plague Combination Vaccine

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Delaware-based, iBio, Inc. has been awarded a grant of rights to use its proprietary technology, the iBioLaunch platform, in support of a $5.3 million government-funded project for the development of a single vaccine to protect against both anthrax and plague.

Delaware-based, iBio, Inc. has been awarded a grant of rights to use its proprietary technology, the iBioLaunch platform, in support of a $5.3 million government-funded project for the development of a single vaccine to protect against both anthrax and plague. The project will be managed by the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB, Newark, DE), in accordance with the long-term agreement between iBio and CMB for advancement of the iBio technology.

The iBioLaunch platform is based on the use of green plants to manufacture vaccines and therapeutic proteins. The technology has been successfully applied to a variety of candidate products, including an avian influenza vaccine planned to be the first product to enter a human clinical trial in 2010.

The platform uses transient gene expression in green plants for greater efficiency in protein production. Its advantages include significantly lower capital and process costs, and the technology is suited to infectious disease applications where speed, scalability, and surge capacity are important.