Soligenix, Inc., a late-stage biopharmaceutical company developing products in the areas of biodefense, inflammation, and oncology, today announced highlights and financial results for the first half of 2015.
During this timeframe, the company initiated a development agreement with Emergent BioSolutions Inc. to implement a commercially viable, scalable production process for the RiVax, a vaccine candidate being developed for protection against ricin exposure.
Under the agreement, Soligenix will transfer the manufacturing processes and analytics to Emergent to conduct process development work that could potentially lead to a future commercial manufacturing collaboration.
Also on the biodefense front, Soligenix this year expanded their ThermoVax technology platform via a collaboration with the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa and Hawaii Biotech, Inc. to develop a heat stable Ebola vaccine.
In addition, Soligenix entered a collaboration with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and the Cutaneous Lymphoma Foundation (CLF) to support recruitment into the SGX301 pivotal Phase 3 cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) clinical study set to begin in the second half of 2015.
“Following the end of the second quarter, we increased our access to capital by entering into a $10 million equity purchase agreement with accredited investors,” stated Christopher J. Schaber, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Soligenix. “This funding, to be used at our sole discretion, has the potential to fund ongoing development initiatives for our late-stage product candidates, including the Phase 3 CTCL clinical study. Our cash position for the second quarter ended June 30, 2015 was $4.0 million versus $5.0 million at March 31, 2015.”
In June 2015, Soligenix also announced the publication of data by the University of Colorado demonstrating a heat stable vaccine formulation of a Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Soligenix has not licensed or acquired any rights to this vaccine and related patent applications, but the study demonstrated the successful conversion of a commercial virus-like particle based vaccine requiring cold-chain storage to a subunit, alum adjuvanted, vaccine which is stable at ambient temperatures.
Source: Soligenix press release, adapted. Rivax and ThermoVax are trademarked, protected terms by Soligenix, Inc.
