Top vaccine researcher sets sights on Zika

Baltimore was a major site in the effort to develop an Ebola vaccine. Two years later, a leading Johns Hopkins researcher is looking to apply a major discovery to the Zika virus.
J. Thomas August, a JHU pharmacology and molecular sciences professor, formed Pharos Biologicals in December. The company received a license to develop DNA vaccine technology called the LAMP for influenza and flaviviruses from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

When this crisis hit, we felt we had the right tools to address it.

The LAMP technology uses the body’s existing biochemistry to immunize against a disease. The longterm development effort made news last fall when Immunomic Therapeutics signed a $300 million licensing deal with pharmaceutical giant Astellas Pharma to use the technology to develop a vaccine for allergies using the technology.
Next fall, the company is aiming to make news again by beginning the first round of Zika vaccine trials.
Transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes, an outbreak of the Zika virus spread to 42 countries where it was never previously identified since 2015. The virus is known to cause birth defects, and a CDC official told a meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore over the weekend that the currently known complications could be the “tip of the iceberg.”
“When this crisis hit, we felt we had the right tools to address it,” said David Wise, a a longtime executive and venture adviser with the Abell Foundation who is serving as CEO of Pharos Biologicals.
Wise said the company is seeking funding for Phase I clinical trials. The vaccine would then require FDA approval.
The effort comes amid a wider push in the scientific and pharmaceutical community to develop a Zika vaccine as the disease continues to spread.