New Patent Awarded for Antigen-Sparing Vaccines that Elicit Robus...( ANN ARBOR Mich. Jan. 30 /- A need...),Health

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- A needle-free vaccine platform that elicits a robust immune response against a wide array of viruses and bacteria has been awarded a U.S. patent. The University of Michigan holds the patent and NanoBio Corporation, a spin-off from the university, licenses the patent and its associated technology.

The intranasal vaccines, produced using NanoBio's nanoemulsion technology, have elicited a dramatic immune response in animals vaccinated against influenza, anthrax, hepatitis B and other diseases. In some cases, the immune response is exponentially higher than what is required to provide adequate protection against infection. Such dramatic levels of immunity would confer significantly higher levels of protection to the vaccinated population at large compared with current injectable vaccines.

Because the vaccines trigger such robust immunity, scientists anticipate they will be able to reduce vaccine antigen quantities to a fraction of what current vaccines require, while still mounting an overwhelming immune response.

This "antigen-sparing" capability would enable scientists to rapidly produce large quantities of vaccines using miniscule amounts of antigen, a critical factor when faced with a disease pandemic or biological warfare.

"We've shown that when we mix our nanoemulsion with whole virus or a recombinant protein antigen and apply it to the naso-pharynx, the resulting vaccine elicits strong mucosal and systemic immunity," said James R. Baker Jr., M.D., founder and Chairman of NanoBio Corporation. "The nanoemulsion serves as an adjuvant to boost immune response against a specific antigen."

NanoBio is in various stages of testing its extensive pipeline of mucosal vaccines for influenza, bird flu, hepatitis B, HIV, RSV, small pox, anthrax and other viral and bacterial infections. Final results from the influenza vaccine study in ferrets are expected this quarter, and human tests with the
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