Farmingdale, New York, April 24, 2019 – Codagenix, Inc., announces today the awarding of a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Phase II SBIR contract to continue the development and testing of a live attenuated, quadrivalent vaccine against Dengue virus (DENV) – based on contemporary strains of Dengue virus. A Military Prioritization Panel hosted by the USAMRMC ranked DENV as the second most significant infectious disease threat to the US military, driving Codagenix and its DOD collaborators to develop a safe and effective vaccine that is a match to current strains of Dengue.

“The clear differentiation for the Codagenix candidate vaccine is that it is based on contemporary, relevant strains of Dengue – not those which are 30-50 years old. Our competitors have based their strains on Dengue viruses in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s,” commented Dr. J. Robert Coleman, CEO of Codagenix.

The quadrivalent DENV vaccine was constructed by Codagenix using its proprietary, software-based algorithm to design live-attenuated versions of each of the four strains of DENV. Each DENV vaccine strain has been shown to be safe and to elicit a potent and balanced immune response in non-human primates. Current vaccines against DENV use gene sequences from historical strains, inserted into DENV2 backbones, raising the possibility of enhanced disease following vaccination. Instead, the Codagenix tetravalent candidate is based on current, circulating strains of DENV that will lead to an improved immune response and vaccine safety.

“Codagenix is committed to supporting the health of US servicemembers by using our innovative platform to construct efficacious and safe vaccines. This DOD SBIR award will allow us to scale up the production of our DENV vaccine and to conduct the necessary testing before proceeding to human clinical studies,” said CSO, Dr. Steffen Mueller.

In addition to DENV, Codagenix is leveraging their vaccine development platform to construct and test vaccines against influenza, RSV, and oncolytic viruses. For the human programs, Codagenix is currently conducting a Phase I clinical trial examining the safety and multi-season efficacy of their live-attenuated influenza vaccine. Early data from that trial demonstrate multi-season and multi-decade immune response and an excellent safety profile to the Codagenix influenza vaccine. Current investors in Codagenix include TopSpin Partners of Roslyn NY as well as support from the NIH, USDA, and The Stony Brook University Center for Bio- technology.

###

This work is supported by the US Army Medical Research Materiel Command/Military Infectious Diseases Research Program/Walter Reed Army Institute of Research under Contract No. W81XWH-19-C-0051. The views, opinions and/or findings contained in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation.

In conducting research using animals, the investigators adhered to the Animal Welfare Act Regulations and other Federal statutes relating to animals and experiments involving animals and the principles set forth in the current version of the Guide for Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, National Research Council.

Media Contact:
Codagenix, Inc.
[email protected]