Local Vaccine Developer Wins Prestigious Award

More good news from Montgomery County's biotech industry. Rockville-based Sanaria Inc. won the 2014 Vaccine Industry Excellence Award for the “Best Prophylactic Vaccine” presented last week during the 14th World Vaccine Congress. Last August, CNN reported on this company's successful clinical trial. Here's the press release from our Department of Economic Development:

The Sanaria® PfSPZ Vaccine demonstrated complete protection against malaria in all volunteers (6/6) who received high dose immunizations in a trial at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH.

The clinical trial results were published online in Science magazine in August 2013. Vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, GSK, and Novartis were among the 6 finalists competing with Sanaria.
Founded in 2003, Sanaria's mission is to develop and commercialize whole-parasite malaria vaccines that confer high-level, long-lasting protection against Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite responsible for most of the malaria-associated severe illness and death worldwide, and the other parasites that cause human malaria, and to use these vaccines to eliminate malaria. The company's corporate headquarters, administrative, research, development, and manufacturing operations are located in Rockville, Maryland.

Two other Montgomery County companies were finalists in their VIE award categories. Rockville-based Accelovance was the highly recommended finalist for Best Clinical Site & Trial Network and a finalist for Best Contract Research Organization.  Gaithersburg-based MedImmune was the highly recommended finalist for Best Pharma Company.