Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Health care |
Founded | 1995 |
Defunct | 2016 |
Fate | Operations shut down with parent company's bankruptcy |
Headquarters | , United States |
Parent | diaDexus, Inc. (from 2010) |
VaxGen was a biopharmaceutical company based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Founded in 1995 and based in South San Francisco, California, the company was engaged in the development of vaccines that immunize against infectious disease, notably AIDS. On July 28, 2010, VaxGen Inc. was acquired by diaDexus, Inc. in a reverse merger transaction.; [1] diaDexus filed for bankruptcy in 2016. [2] VaxGen, Inc. does not have significant operations.
In the 1990s, VaxGen developed and began trials of an AIDS vaccine called AIDSVAX. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) worked with Vaxgen when Vaxgen was developing its AIDS vaccine. Specifically, NIAID and Vaxgen worked together on research projects related to the body's immune response to the vaccine. As of 1998, according to NIAID, "The three-year study [of AIDSVAX] is the first large-scale trial of an HIV preventive vaccine, and will involve 5,000 volunteers at about 40 clinical sites in North America." Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "The effort to develop a safe and effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS is a global imperative and the highest priority of the NIH AIDS research program." [3]
However, in 2003, it was announced that the preliminary trials of the vaccine, conducted in Thailand and North America, had been unsuccessful. [4] [5] The company's analysis of its results, which resulted in some potentially positive outcomes among patient subgroups, was criticized by statisticians as inappropriate. [6]
Vaxgen had focused its recent efforts on a new form of anthrax vaccine, for which it was awarded a $877 million contract to provide the vaccine under the Project Bioshield Act. [7]
In December 2006, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unilaterally withdrew the $877 million contract, sending the stock tumbling as low as $1.20 per share.[ citation needed ]
An HIV vaccine is a potential vaccine that could be either a preventive vaccine or a therapeutic vaccine, which means it would either protect individuals from being infected with HIV or treat HIV-infected individuals.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's mission is to conduct basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
Donald Pinkston Francis is an American epidemiologist who worked on the Ebola outbreak in Africa in the late 1970s, and as an HIV/AIDS researcher. He retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 1992, after 21 years of service. He lives in San Francisco, California.
The Division of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (DAIDS) is a division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. It was formed in 1986 as a part of the initiative to address the national research needs created by the advent and spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Specifically, the Division's mission is to increase basic knowledge of the pathogenesis, natural history, and transmission of HIV disease and to support research that promotes progress in its detection, treatment, and prevention. DAIDS accomplishes this through planning, implementing, managing, and evaluating programs in (1) fundamental basic research, (2) discovery and development of therapies for HIV infection and its complications, and (3) discovery and development of vaccines and other prevention strategies.
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is an American multinational specialty biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It develops vaccines and antibody therapeutics for infectious diseases and opioid overdoses, and it provides medical devices for biodefense purposes.
AIDSVAX is an experimental HIV vaccine that was developed originally at Genentech in San Francisco, California, and later tested by the VaxGen company, a Genentech offshoot. The development and trials of the vaccine received significant coverage in the international media, but American trials proved inconclusive. The vaccine was then tested on a group of at-risk individuals in Thailand.
GeoVax is a clinical-stage biotechnology company which develops vaccines. GeoVax's development platform uses Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector technology, with improvements to antigen design and manufacturing capabilities. GeoVax uses recombinant DNA or recombinant viruses to produce virus-like particles (VLPs) in the person being vaccinated.
JN-International Medical Corporation (JNIMC) is a U.S.-based biopharmaceutical corporation which since 1998 has been focused on developing vaccines and diagnostics for infectious disease for developing countries. This private corporation was founded in 1998 by Dr. Jeeri R. Reddy with the help of Dr. Kelly F. Lechtenberg in a small rural town, Oakland, Nebraska. From there it grew and expanded until in the year 2000 the corporation moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
The Vaccine Research Center (VRC), is an intramural division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The mission of the VRC is to discover and develop both vaccines and antibody-based products that target infectious diseases.
Barton Ford Haynes is an American physician and immunologist internationally recognized for work in T-cell immunology, retrovirology, and HIV vaccine development. Haynes is a Frederic M. Hanes Professor of Medicine and Immunology at Duke University Medical Center. He is the director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Duke Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology and Immunogen Discovery (CHAVI-ID), which was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 2012. In addition, Haynes directs the B-cell Lineage Envelope Design Study, the Centralized Envelope Phase I Study, and the Role of IgA in HIV-1 Protection Study as part of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD), which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006.
RV 144, or the Thai trial, was an HIV vaccine clinical trial that was conducted in Thailand between 2003 and 2006. It used a combination of two HIV vaccines that had each failed in earlier trials. Participants were vaccinated over the course of 24 weeks beginning in October 2003 and were then tested for HIV until July 2006. The results of the study were publicized in September 2009. The initial report showed that the rate of HIV infection among volunteers who received the experimental vaccine was 31% lower than the rate of HIV infection in volunteers who received the placebo. This reduction was not large enough for the Ministry of Public Health in Thailand to support approving the vaccine; it would have licensed it if the reduction had been 50% or more.
The United States Military HIV Research Program was initiated by the United States Congress in 1986, in reaction to the threat of lost effectiveness of U.S./Allied troops due to HIV infection. The mission of MHRP is to develop an HIV-1 vaccine, provide prevention, care, and treatment, and conduct meaningful HIV/AIDS research for the global community through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It is centered at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), and has established five international research sites in Africa and Asia. MHRP also partners with the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences (AFRIMS) in Thailand. MHRP works closely with The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (HJF), most notably in the development of the RV144 HIV vaccine in Thailand. MHRP is the largest research program supported by the HJF.
Jeffrey P. Nadler is an American Infectious Diseases and HIV/AIDS expert. His most recent position has been as Acting Director and Assistant Director of the Therapeutics Research Program, Division of AIDS (DAIDS), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) where he oversaw NIH/NIAID-sponsored national and international HIV/AIDS research.
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Nelson L. Michael is an American infectious disease researcher. He has served for nearly 30 years in the United States Army and been directly involved with significant advancements in understanding the pathology of and vaccine development for diseases like HIV, Zika, Ebola and more. Much of his career has been spent at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Vanessa M. Hirsch is a Canadian-American veterinary pathologist and scientist. She is a senior investigator and chief of the nonhuman primate virology section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Hirsch researches AIDS pathogenesis, the evolution and origins of primate lentiviruses, and HIV vaccine development.
Jeanne Marisa Marrazzo is an American physician-scientist and infectious diseases specialist. She was the director of the University of Alabama School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases and focused on prevention of HIV infection using biomedical interventions. Marrazzo is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and Infectious Disease Society of America. On August 2, 2023 Lawrence A. Tabak, acting director for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), named Jeanne M. Marrazzo as director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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John Ring La Montagne was a Mexican-American biomedical scientist who served as the deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1998 to 2004. He specialized in viral vaccines, HIV/AIDS research, and oversaw NIH's biodefense research after the September 11 attacks.
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Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins also is listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines.
Historically was http://www.VaxGen.com. This URL is no longer for the Vaxgen, Inc. in this article.