GeoVax Announces Issuance Of Cancer Vaccine Patent

GeoVax Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOVX), a biotechnology company developing human immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued Patent No. 11278607 to GeoVax, pursuant to the Company's patent application No. 16/068,527 entitled "Compositions and Methods for Generating an Immune Response to a Tumor Associated Antigen."

The claims granted by the patent generally cover GeoVax's vector platform for expressing tumor associated antigens in virus-like particles (VLPs) from a Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) viral vector and encompass GeoVax's Mucin 1 (MUC1) tumor-associated antigen immunotherapy candidate. The Company uses its GV-MVA-VLP™ vaccine platform to express abnormal, aberrantly glycosylated forms of the cell surface-associated MUC1 protein that is associated with a wide range of cancers, including breast, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, and lung. 

David Dodd, GeoVax President and CEO, commented, "The initial results with our MVA-VLP-MUC1 immunotherapy candidates have been encouraging and we recently began an IND-enabling animal study with Dr. Pinku Mukherjee at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to define the optimal course and schedule of vaccination to define a protocol that can be evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial. We believe our MVA vector platform is well-suited for development of therapeutic cancer vaccines based on the expression of tumor-associated antigens such as MUC1 and Cyclin B1, among others."

Dodd added, "In addition to our work with MUC1, we are also developing Gedeptin®, a novel patented product for the treatment of solid tumors currently in a Phase 1/2 trial evaluating its safety and efficacy in patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). We are excited by the potential for GeoVax's growing immuno-oncology pipeline."