Immune Design and Medicago link up to develop flu vaccines

Privately-held US biotech firm Immune Design and Medicago (TSX: MDG), a Canadian biopharmaceutical company focused on developing highly effective and competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), have entered a license agreement providing Medicago the use and commercialization of Immune Design's proprietary synthetic Toll-like Receptor 4 agonist, Glucopyranosyl Lipid A (GLA).

Medicago has the option to use Immune Design's molecular adjuvant in its vaccines for various pandemic influenza strains. Under the terms of the deal, Immune Design has granted Medicago a worldwide, non-exclusive license to research, develop and commercialize GLA as a component of its VLP-based vaccines in the field of pandemic influenza. Other terms of the accord were not disclosed.

Medicago's first vaccine candidate in the field, which targets the H5N1 influenza strain, completed a successful US Phase I study that was conducted with the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), earlier this year. In that study, all three configurations of adjuvant and route of administration (ID, Alum, and GLA-AF) for 20ug of the H5N1 vaccine candidate induced a solid immune response against the H5N1 viral strain that exceeded the CHMP immunogenicity criteria for licensure of influenza vaccines. Medicago recently initiated a Phase II study of its H5N1 VLP in combination with both the GLA and alum adjuvants with results expected in the summer of 2013.