Date: 2016-02-01
Type of information: Grant
Company: Bionor Pharma (Norway)
Investors: the Research Council of Norway (Norway)
Amount: NOK 9.2 million (€ 0.97 million)
Funding type: grant
Planned used: This grant has been awarded to partially fund an exploratory Phase I/II trial of Vacc-4x in combination with an immune regulating agent. The Grant from RCN is expected to correspond to around 40% of the total trial cost incurred in the trial period from 2016 to 2019. Bionor’s strategy is to advance Vacc-4x in combination with other medicines in order to significantly contribute to a functional HIV cure, and has, as a first step, adopted a “Shock & Kill” clinical strategy employing Vacc-4x (“Kill”) as a core treatment in combination with a latency reversing agent (“Shock”). Bionor anticipates that an immune regulating agent will also be needed as part of a triple regimen combination treatment, to achieve functional cure. This study will test an HIV-specific broadly neutralizing antibody (bNab) as a candidate third component. The bNab is expected to complement the effects of Vacc-4x by blocking infectivity of virus particles produced on latency reversal. Vacc-4x must be tested with the latency reversing agent and bNab separately to confirm safety and effect before they can be tested in a later stage clinical trial of a triple regimen as a future therapy for functional HIV cure.
Others: * On February 1, 2016, Bionor Pharma announced that the Research Council of Norway (RCN) through its BIA Program (Brukerstyrt Innovasjonsarena), has awarded the company up to NOK 9.2 million (€ 0.97 million) to partially fund an exploratory Phase I/II trial of Vacc-4x in combination with an immune regulating agent. The BIA program supports high-quality R&D projects with good business and socio-economic potential.
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
