AFFiRiS: Vaccination against hypertension has been awarded an FFG grant up to EUR 1.2 million

01-Mar-2010 - Austria

AFFiRiS AG announced the start of a new program to develop a vaccine against hypertension. This means that there are now four of the company's current seven development projects in the public domain. The specific reason for the "outing" of project no. 4 was the approval of public research promotion funds by the FFG. The vaccine is targeting angiotensin II, a peptide hormone that can cause narrowing of the blood vessels and thereby hypertension.

Dr. Walter Schmidt, CEO of AFFiRiS AG comments on the company's development pipeline: "With projects in seven different indications at the moment, AFFiRiS AG has achieved a broad diversification of potential development risks. While building up this pipeline we were consequently guided by our strategic focus, which is targeting disease areas with very large numbers of patients and lack of optimal therapies. We believe that systematic risk distribution, together with a focus on indications with a high market potential is the key for substantial success of a biotechnology company. The early VC investment by MIG Fonds AG, Munich, was of substancial importance for the establishment of our strong development pipeline. Our first licensing agreement on our Alzheimer's vaccination approach valued at up to EUR 430 million, shows that the pharmaceutical industry does already believe in our technology."

So far AFFiRiS AG had announced the development of two vaccines for Alzheimer's disease as well as one each for Parkinson's disease and atherosclerosis. These diseases affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The development of a vaccine for the treatment of hypertension is now of similar importance as hypertension is one of the major causes of diseases of the cardiovascular system and thus one of the most frequent causes of disease-induced deaths worldwide.

AFFiRiS AG is once again able to take advantage of its unique AFFITOME® platform technology which allows the generation of vaccines targeting autologous structures such as proteins and peptides. With Angiotensin II AFFiRiS AG is addressing a human hormone for the first time. This peptide hormone brings about vasoconstriction thereby increasing the blood pressure and is therefore presenting a promising target structure for intervention in chronic hypertension.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/114227/affiris-vaccination-against-hypertension-has-been-awarded-an-ffg-grant-up-to-eur-1-2-million.html