Soligenix's RiVax receives funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Soligenix Inc., a late-stage biopharmaceutical company that creates rare-disease targeting products, recently announced that its good manufacturing practices-compliant bulk drug substance, RiVax, has received funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The funding will go toward the development of Soligenix’s thermostabilization technology, ThermoVax, as well as RiVax, the company’s ricin toxin vaccine. The goal is to create a medical countermeasure for the effects of ricin exposure.

“The exercise of this option demonstrates the positive and productive collaboration between NIAID and the Soligenix team,” Christopher Schaber, Soligenix president and CEO, said in a statement. “With this recent option exercise by NIAID, along with the one exercised this past June, we now have approximately $4.5 million in additional non-dilutive funding that will allow us to proceed with both (good manufacturing practices) manufacture and preclinical efficacy studies.  We look forward to accelerating this important work with NIAID and engaging the FDA to advance the RiVax program.”