Atlanta, GA, April 26, 2022 – GeoVax Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing human vaccines and immunotherapies against infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent No. 11,311,612 to GeoVax, pursuant to the Company’s patent application No. 16/648,693 titled “Compositions and Methods for Generating an Immune Response to Treat or Prevent Malaria.” In general, the claims granted in the patent cover GeoVax’s modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector expressing certain antigens from the malaria parasite.
Globally, malaria causes 228 million infections and 405,000 deaths annually. Despite decades of vaccine research, vaccine candidates have failed to induce substantial protection (e.g. >50%). Most of these vaccines are based on individual proteins that induce immune responses targeting only one stage of the malaria parasite’s life cycle. GeoVax’s MVA-VLP malaria vaccine candidates incorporate antigens derived from multiple stages of the parasite’s life cycle and are designed to induce an immune response with durable functional antibodies and CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses, all hallmarks of an ideal vaccine-induced immune response.
David Dodd, GeoVax President and CEO, commented, “We remain strongly committed to advancing innovation towards improving public health worldwide and this patent reflects a potentially significant advance relative to malaria prevention. Our development priorities continue to be our COVID-19 vaccine, currently in Phase 2 clinical trials, and our cancer immunotherapy program, with Gedeptin® as our lead product in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for Head and Neck cancer. However, developing vaccines against global public health threats such as malaria, is also part of our longer-term focus. Collaborations with government and academic institutions, such as the NIH, USAID, and the Burnet Institute, will continue to be components of our efforts to design, produce and test novel vaccines against malaria. Our goals include developing such vaccines that are affordable, highly effective, safe, and can be distributed and administrated across various regions of the world in a simple manner.”
About the GV-MVA-VLPTM Platform
GeoVax’s GV-MVA-VLPTM vaccine platform utilizes modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), a large virus capable of carrying several vaccine antigens, that expresses proteins that assemble into virus-like particles (VLP) immunogens in the person receiving the vaccine. The production of VLPs in the person being vaccinated can mimic the virus production that occurs in a natural infection, stimulating both the humoral and cellular arms of the immune system to recognize, prevent, and control the target infection. The MVA-VLP derived vaccines can elicit durable immune responses in the host similar to a live-attenuated virus, while providing the safety characteristics of a replication-defective vector.
About GeoVax
GeoVax Labs, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing human vaccines and immunotherapies against infectious diseases and cancer using novel proprietary platforms. GeoVax’s product pipeline includes two ongoing Phase 2 clinical trials of GEO-CM04S1 (formerly COH04S1) for COVID-19 as a universal booster vaccine to mRNA vaccines authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and as a primary vaccine for use in immunocompromised patients. In addition to GEO-CM04S1 for COVID-19, GeoVax is developing GEO-CM02 as a pan-coronavirus vaccine. The Company is also conducting a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of Gedeptin® for treatment of head and neck cancer. Gedeptin® has been granted orphan drug status by the FDA. Additional research and development programs include preventive vaccines against Zika Virus, hemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Sudan, Marburg, and Lassa) and malaria, as well as immunotherapies for multiple solid tumors. The Company’s portfolio of wholly owned, co-owned, and in-licensed intellectual property stands at over 70 granted or pending patent applications spread over 20 patent families.
For additional information about GeoVax, visit our website: www.geovax.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements regarding GeoVax’s business plans. The words “believe,” “look forward to,” “may,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “should,” “plan,” “could,” “target,” “potential,” “is likely,” “will,” “expect” and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors, including whether: GeoVax is able to obtain acceptable results from ongoing or future clinical trials of its investigational products, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines can provoke the desired responses, and those products or vaccines can be used effectively, GeoVax’s viral vector technology adequately amplifies immune responses to cancer antigens, GeoVax can develop and manufacture its immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax’s vaccines will effectively prevent targeted infections in humans, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete 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.
Further information on our risk factors is contained in our registration statement on Form S-1 and the periodic reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K that we have filed and will file with the SEC. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.
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