http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/printStory.pl?news_id=9065

BioSante, Army to create vaccines

By Kelly Quigley

June 05, 2003

Lincolnshire-based BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Wednesday said it has signed a deal with the U.S. Army to help develop vaccines that would protect against infectious bioterrorism agents like anthrax and ricin.

Under the agreement, BioSante will work with the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, supplying its proprietary BioVant formula that is added to vaccines to stimulate the immune system.

The Army will provide the various infectious antigens that would be used in the vaccines and conduct studies on rodents. A BioSante spokesman said the Army has agreed to grant the company an exclusive license to patent any resulting vaccines.

The vaccines are designed to protect emergency crews and soldiers against possible bio-terrorism attacks, the spokesman said. BioSante would be able to sell the vaccines commercially if they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

This is the second government deal for BioSante, a five-year-old biopharmaceutical development company with 14 employees. In January the firm announced an agreement with the U.S. Navy’s Medial Research Center to produce what would be the first malaria vaccine. That project is still underway.

The spokesman said BioSante's pact with the Army represents a “much more expansive project,” in which BioSante will help formulate four separate vaccines against anthrax, ricin, staph, and F1V, a protein derived from bacteria that caused the bubonic plague.

The spokesman said BioSante and the Army are in very early development stages for the vaccines, and there is not a projected date for completion.

In addition to developing vaccines, BioSante focuses much of its product research on hormone therapies, some of which are in late-stage clinical trials.

BioSante’s shares, which trade over the counter, rose 63 cents or 30%, to close at $2.75 on Wednesday.