Soligenix Inc., formerly known as DOR BioPharma Inc., a late-stage biotechnology company, today announced it has formed a consortium to develop technology to enhance acting vaccines, including RiVax, the company’s proprietary vaccine for ricin toxin, which can be used as a biological weapon. Soligenix also announced it was awarded a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to continue this work.

The announced consortium draws together industry and academic researchers from various disciplines, including the University of Colorado, the University of Kansas, and the Tulane National Primate Research Center, SRI International, Health Research Inc, Battelle Memorial Institute, Nanotherapeutics, and BioCon Inc.

“Each of our academic and industry consortium members brings impressive expertise to our vaccine stabilization program,” Dr. Robert N. Brey, PhD, chief scientific officer of Soligenix stated in the press release. “This association has the potential

TapImmune Inc. is a biotechnology company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. They specialize in the development of immunotherapeutic vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases. Their core business focus is on emerging technologies based on cellular immunology and genetic understanding of the cause and potential novel treatments of disease.

TapImmune Inc.’s lead product is the TAP vaccine. It performs a key step in moving characteristic markers called antigens to the surfaces of cells. Without TAP, there are no cancer markers. Therefore, the immune system fails to spot the rogue cells and the cancerous cells can grow undetected. In addition, the TAP molecule works as an adjuvant (accelerant) to enhance targeted vaccines against infectious diseases.

The Company is developing AdhTAP for the commencement of toxicology studies leading to the initiation of Phase I clinical trials. The expectation is that the global vaccine market will grow from $13 billion in 2007 to $21 billion

Leading DNA vaccine discovery company, Inovio Biomedical Corporation announced that their Scientific Advisory Board Chairman, Dr. David B. Weiner, highlighted advances in the company’s leading electroporation-delivered SynCon™ DNA vaccines at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 Conference in Paris.

The study, led by Dr. Weiner’s team at the University of Pennsylvania, included collaborators from Inovio and Merck. The team previously reported that DNA vaccines delivered using electroporation induced dramatic increases in T-cell and antibody-based immune responses. This collaborative study was the first to directly compare a DNA plasmid-electroporation platform with a recombinant Ad5 vector in an SIV model in non-human primates.

Dr. Weiner presented pre-clinical data showing higher levels of immune responses induced by Inovio’s DNA vaccines than to those induced by the recombinant adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vector. Historically, recombinant Ad5 vector has been shown to be one of the most potent viral vectors for vaccines.

In his presentation, Dr. Weiner also

DOR BioPharma Inc. is a late-stage biotechnology company that has been gaining national attention for its state-of-the-art technology. DOR reached a major milestone in the advancement of its company with the announcement that it has been awarded a $9.4 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is a division of the National Institute of Health (NIH).

This grant will assist the company’s future over the next five years with the development of formulation and manufacturing processes for vaccines, including RiVax(TM), that are stable at elevated temperatures. The grant will also fund the development of improved thermostable adjuvants expected to result in rapidly acting vaccines that can be given with fewer injections over shorter intervals.

The development of heat-stable vaccines will take advantage of combining several novel formulation processes with well-characterized adjuvants that have been evaluated in numerous vaccine field trials. The formulation and process technology funded