ATLANTA, GA, April 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing human vaccines, is honored to announce that it won “Best Biotech” at the World Vaccine Congress Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards. These awards recognize the efforts, accomplishments, and positive contributions of companies and individuals in the vaccine industry. GeoVax was also an award finalist for “Best Prophylactic Vaccine” (for its novel Zika vaccine).
During the World Vaccine Congress, GeoVax’s Chief Scientific Officer, Farshad Guirakhoo, PhD, gave a talk entitled “MVA-VLP as a Plug and Play platform for development of safe and effective single dose vaccines for Emerging Infectious Diseases, preclinical data for Zika, Ebola and Lassa as examples.” Dr. Guirakhoo discussed GeoVax’s vaccine platform which utilizes its recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector to express foreign antigens on virus-like particles (VLPs) in the person being vaccinated. The MVA-VLP platform has several advantages including the ability to confer full protection upon a single inoculation. Single-dose protection is a favorable characteristic of a vaccine in response to an outbreak of an emerging infectious disease, given the speed of spread of pathogens and the impracticality of multi-dose regimens in the under-resourced settings where outbreaks often occur. In studies for Ebola, Lassa and Zika, a single dose of GeoVax’s vaccine fully protected animals against a lethal challenge. These vaccines are now ready to enter human clinical trials.
GeoVax’s MVA-VLP platform technology is built upon a 4th generation MVA vector system that is improved for balanced and stable expression of transgenes and vaccine inserts during manufacture. It has the advantages of being a live replication-competent vector in avian cells for manufacturing, yet replication-deficient in mammalian cells for vaccination, thus inherently safe. Importantly, MVA vaccines elicit protective T cell as well as antibody responses in animals and humans. The MVA platform can be combined with the potent immunogenicity of VLPs or be used to express proteins in their native multimeric conformations enabling vaccines that induce full protection after a single dose. The safety and immunogenicity of the platform was first validated in animal and human studies using DNA and MVA-VLP-HIV vaccines and further expanded for developing vaccines against emerging pathogens, endemic diseases, chronic infections and cancer.
About GeoVax
GeoVax Labs, Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing human vaccines against infectious diseases using its MVA-VLP vaccine platform. The Company’s development programs are focused on vaccines against HIV, Zika, hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, Lassa) and malaria. GeoVax also is evaluating the use of its MVA-VLP platform in cancer immunotherapy, and for therapeutic use in chronic Hepatitis B infections. GeoVax’s vaccine platform supports in vivo production of non-infectious VLPs from the cells of the very person receiving the vaccine. The production of VLPs in the person being vaccinated mimics virus production in a natural infection, stimulating both the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system to recognize, prevent, and control the target infection. For more information, visit www.geovax.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this document are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors, including whether: GeoVax can develop and manufacture its vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax's vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax's vaccines will effectively prevent targeted infections in humans, GeoVax’s vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete vaccine development, there is development of competitive products that may be more effective or easier to use than GeoVax's products, GeoVax will be able to enter into favorable manufacturing and distribution agreements, and other factors, over which GeoVax has no control. GeoVax assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, and does not intend to do so. More information about these factors is contained in GeoVax's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including those set forth at "Risk Factors" in GeoVax's Form 10-K.