Dutch biopharma company Crucell has received a contract providing funding of up to $30 million to further develop a multivalentfilovirus vaccine targeting both Ebola and Marburg viruses.

The contract, from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)/National Institutes of Health (NIH) may offer additional options of the NIH worth further $40 million. The contract builds upon the company's earlier work in this area with the Vaccine Research Center at NIH. Crucell will be the primary contractor with additional services being supplied by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, located in San Antonio, Texas and Quintiles Guys Drug Research Unit, located in London.

Both the Ebola and Marburg viruses are known to cause hemorrhagic fever, a often-fatal disease in humans causing death in over half of all cases. Outbreaks of the two viruses occur sporadically in tropical Africa, and affect both human and great ape populations. They normally spread within a health-care setting. Ebola and Marburg viruses are on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Category "A" list of bioterror agents, together with smallpox and anthrax because of the high disease-related mortality rates and lack of any vaccine or therapy.

Crucell is a global biopharma company focused on research, development, production and marketing of vaccines, proteins and antibodies. Crucell's core portfolio includes a vaccine against hepatitis B, a fully-liquid vaccine against five important childhood diseases, a vaccine against influenza, as well as oral travel vaccines against typhoid and cholera and an aluminum-free hepatitis A vaccine.

The company has generated a series of adenoviruses including Ad11, Ad35, and Ad49 and derivatives thereof as well as manufacturing platforms for these vectors. The AdVac(R) vectors can be produced to carry genetic information derived from viruses, parasites and bacteria. The NIAID award recognizes the scientific basis for using adenovirus as vaccine vectors.

Source: Crucell N.V.