Inviragen merges with SingVax and completes $15 million series A financing

US company Inviragen and Singapore's SingVax have merged their complementary vaccine pipelines and their international product development capabilities to create a company that is developing a wide range of vaccines for infectious diseases prevalent in emerging economies. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed

Concurrently with the merger, the combined company raised $15 million in a series A equity investment from a syndicate of international venture capital investors, including Charter Life Sciences (USA), Venture Investors (USA), Bio*One Capital (Singapore) and Phillip Private Equity (Singapore).

The combined company will retain the Inviragen name and will have research and corporate operations in Fort Collins, Colorado, vaccine development operations in Singapore and vaccine testing capabilities in Madison, Wisconsin. 'Post-merger, Inviragen has three vaccines poised to begin human clinical trials,' noted Dan Stinchcomb, Inviragen chief executive. 'During the next 18 months, these clinical studies will test vaccine safety and measure the immune responses induced by these three vaccines to establish 'proof-of-concept' of their efficacy,' he added.

Inviragen's lead vaccine is designed to protect against Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that threatens 3.6 billion people who live in tropical and subtropical regions around the globe. 36 million cases of Dengue fever are thought to occur per year worldwide. The most severe form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever, leads to the deaths of approximately 20,000 people annually. Both the number of reported cases and the number of countries affected have been on the rise, and the disease could continue to spread due to increasing urbanization, international travel and global warming. Human clinical testing of Inviragen's dengue vaccine is expected to commence in 2010 in the U.S., Colombia, and Singapore.

Inviragen's second vaccine is designed to protect against hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD). Large epidemics of HFMD have plagued children in Asia for the last 20 years. Notably, a major outbreak is underway this year in China, with over 700,000 cases reported through July. There have also been yearly outbreaks of HFMD among children in Singapore; 2008 was the worst epidemic year to date with over 29,000 cases, which represents more than 9% of the estimated susceptible population.

The third Inviragen vaccine protects against Japanese encephalitis, a mosquito-borne virus that causes 35,000 to 50,000 severe clinical cases and kills 10,000 to 15,000 children throughout Asia every year.

Inviragen is also developing vaccines to protect against other important infectious diseases, including chikungunya, HPV, West Nile and influenza.