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Juvaris BioTherapeutics, Inc. announced today that they entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with Valentis to use Valentis' proprietary plasmid backbone in conjunction with Valentis' proprietary DOTIM cationic lipid for the development and commercialization of therapeutic vaccine products. Under terms of the agreement, Valentis will receive cash payments from Juvaris and be eligible for future product development milestones and royalties on sales. Juvaris will be responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of products and will bear all related program expenses. Further terms and financial considerations were not disclosed. "Juvaris will use this proprietary lipid-DNA complex to up-regulate the immune system as well as provide a vaccine platform for disease-specific antigens. Our substantial preclinical data continues to support this choice," said Martin D. Cleary, Co-founder, President and CEO of Juvaris, and added "This is also an important step in advancing our immunotherapeutic product development program. Valentis has already generated clinical data with this plasmid and lipid and Juvaris will benefit from the manufacturing, regulatory and related data generated to date. This know-how will shorten our time to the clinic and avoid delays in our product development strategy. I am delighted we were able to come to this exclusive licensing agreement." About Juvaris Juvaris BioTherapeutics was created in 2002 to develop an immunotherapeutic product platform for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer using lipid-DNA complexes. Cationic lipids are formulated with non-coding DNA (plasmid) to create JuvImmuneTM, a single lipid-DNA complex, which as an immunostimulation product will have utility in a number of non-antigen immunotherapeutic applications. The DNA in these complexes does not code for protein, but rather, through a combined synergistic effect with lipids, strongly stimulates immune responses. The JuvImmuneTM product has been shown to be at least 50-times more potent at triggering innate immune activation and interferon release than current immune stimulants. Juvaris was recently issued Patent No. 6,693,086 titled "Systemic Immune Activation Method Using Nucleic Acid-Lipid Complexes" providing broad intellectual property coverage for the JuvImmuneTM technology. When combined with disease-specific antigens, the technology creates JuvaVaxTM vaccines capable of activating substantial antibody- and cell-mediated immune responses, particularly induction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Immunological responses elicited by the lipid-DNA complexes have been successfully demonstrated in both prophylactic and therapeutic settings in a variety of mammals including rodents, rabbits, cats, dogs and non-human primates. This system provides the opportunity to develop many disease-specific vaccine products, for which there are significant unmet medical needs. The Company encourages investment and partnering inquiries and can be reached at their website @ www.juvaris.com. Company Contact: |