PROVIDENCE – Local biopharmaceutical startup EpiVax Inc. has been awarded a two-year, $600,000 grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), a division of the National Institutes of Health, to continue development of a possible treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
Studies supported by the new grant will aim to determine whether the company’s “Epi-13” does, in fact, protect the body’s capability to produce its own insulin. Type 1 diabetes – also known as juvenile diabetes – affects more than 3 million people nationwide.
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“This research deals with a critically important clinical problem, and the approach EpiVax is taking in developing new diabetes therapies holds great promise,” Dr. Robert Smith, of the Hallett Center for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Rhode Island Hospital, said in today’s announcement. He will join Dr. David Scott, of the University of Maryland, in carrying out the studies in partnership with EpiVax.
“EpiVax is grateful to the NIH and other funding sources in allowing our scientific team to conduct further research on a treatment for a disease that affects the health of so many young persons,” Dr. Annie S. De Groot, CEO and chief science officer, said in a statement today.
“The grant from NIH will build on our current work funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and with these two sources of funding in hand, we expect to be ready to consider clinical trials for treatment of juvenile diabetes, beginning in two to three years,” De Groot added.
“Antigen-specific tolerance,” the focus of the EpiVax approach (READ MORE), “continues to be a major goal-area in autoimmunity for JDRF,” said Teodora Staeva, director of the JDRF Autoimmunity Program. “The proposal from EpiVax presents a novel approach that could potentially generate or restore immune regulation in Type 1 diabetes, and we are pleased to see the NIH/NIDDK follow-on funding to support this important project.”
EpiVax Inc. is a biotechnology company that is merging bioinformatics with the latest in vitro immunological research to generate new vaccines for infectious diseases, such as hepatitis, HIV and tuberculosis, and new treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases. To learn more, visit www.epivax.com.
