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www.fdanews.com/articles/61444-u-s-firm-s-cholera-vaccine-receives-21-million-in-funding

U.S. FIRM'S CHOLERA VACCINE RECEIVES $21 MILLION IN FUNDING

August 4, 2006

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) has received $21 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a cholera vaccine initiative, which will include conducting further clinical trials of CholeraGarde, Avant Immunotherapeutics' cholera vaccine. The institute plans to conduct Phase II and Phase III clinical trials of the vaccine in Bangladesh and India beginning in 2007.

In addition to CholeraGarde, Avant is developing an oral, killed-whole-cell cholera vaccine to prevent diarrhea and dysentery in travelers and military personnel in developed countries as well as people living in developing countries with high rates of water- and foodborne diseases. Avant's Ty800 typhoid fever vaccine is in a Phase I/II clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The company's vaccine against enterotoxigenic E. coli and a Shigella sonnei vaccine are in preclinical development.

The IVI is focused on the health of children in developing countries and the introduction and use of new vaccines. The IVI's earlier collaborations with Avant were supported by the Diseases of the Most Impoverished Program, which was also funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.