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news.Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, a company into RNA interference (RNAi) therapeutics, has entered into a new contract with the US Department of Defense (DoD) Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP) through the US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), to advance an RNAi therapeutic making use of Tekmira’s lipid nanoparticle technology, SNALP (stable nucleic acid-lipid particle), to treat Ebola virus infection.
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Tekmira’s US-based affiliated office based in Washington state, Protiva, is expected to receive more than 15% of the estimated value of this award, as a subcontract.
As per the contract, in the initial phase of the contract, which is funded as part of the Transformational Medical Technologies (TMT) program, Tekmira is eligible to receive up to $34.7m over the next three years for the development of an Ebola SNALP product candidate through pre-clinical development, filing of an investigational new drug (IND) application with the FDA and completion of a Phase 1 human safety clinical trial.
TMT is also eligible to extend the contract beyond the initial funding period to support the advancement of the Ebola SNALP product through clinical development and FDA approval. This extension would provide Tekmira with a total of up to $140m in funding for the entire program, based on the budget of the contract.
Tekmira and US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) have jointly released research data describing the antiviral activity of small interfering RNA (siRNA) in SNALP targeting the Ebola virus (Ebola SNALP) which demonstrated that when used to treat previously infected non-human primates, Ebola SNALP resulted in 100% protection from an otherwise lethal dose of Zaire Ebola virus.
Mark Murray, president and CEO of Tekmira, said: “We are enthusiastic about advancing Ebola SNALP through clinical trials to FDA approval. This work builds on our recently published research, where we reported that Ebola SNALP could confer complete protection to non-human primates from a lethal dose of Ebola virus.”