Life Sciences, DNA Vaccines, funding

Vical Hits Milestones

Bruce V. Bigelow 6/22/09

Vical, (NASDAQ: VICL) the San Diego biotech developing DNA vaccines for cancer and infectious disease, says it has received a $1.5 million milestone payment from Merck for its early stage development of a cancer vaccine based on Vical’s technology. In a statement, Vical CEO Vijay Samant says, “We have leveraged our technologies through license agreements for the development of cancer vaccines and gene-based angiogenesis for cardiovascular diseases.” Vical, which was profiled recently by Denise, said last week it had reached milestones in its own development of RapidResponse, a platform intended to produce millions of doses of vaccines in a few days to fight pandemic diseases.

Bruce V. Bigelow is the editor of Xconomy San Diego. You can e-mail him at bbigelow@xconomy.com or call 858-202-0492