Raleigh, NC - Vaccine developer Arbovax Inc. has closed its Series A round with a total investment of $1.43 million, led by Piedmont Angel Networks with additional investment from The Research Development Foundation, Carson City, Nevada and Mario Family Partners.

The investment will allow Arbovax to move forward with its Dengue Fever Virus program which will include early-stage testing of the technology in a mouse model, said Malcolm Thomas, CEO of Arbovax.

Thomas tells TechJournal South the four-person company plans an additional hire in the next couple of months. It just moved into its current offices in January after operating virtually. Although the company was founded in Oct. 2005, Thomsas says “We’ve been a real company since July 2007.”

The Raleigh-based company is developing a novel technology to facilitate the development of vaccines against insect-borne viruses.

“We are very excited at the progress to date and this investment will allow us to fully exploit the advances made so far and also to explore other promising disease targets such as West Nile and Chikungunya.”

The core technology, developed by Dr. Dennis Brown and Dr. Raquel Hernandez of NC State University, provides a platform that offers improved vaccine technology in a cost effective manner targeting a portfolio of arthropod-borne diseases including Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, West Nile Chikungunya and Yellow Fever.

The basic technology, Thomas explains, “Is really quite simple. We can work with any insect borne virus.”

Arbovax modifies the part of the virus that is involved in entering a cell prior to infection. By knocking out a few amino acids in the virus, it will continue to grow in an insect cell, but not in mammalian ones. “That makes it a perfect vaccine target,” says Thomas.

It should also cost only about 10 cents a dose, he adds, which makes it very cost effective.

Arbovaxs initial focus, Dengue Fever, is ranked second, behind Malaria, by the World Health Organization for its devastating global impact.
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