BioFactura is a collaborator on a grant awarded to the Geneva Foundation. Ebola drug development funding will be provided under a Partnerships for Biodefense grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The project team is led by the Geneva Foundation (Seattle, WA) and includes partners at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID, Ft. Detrick, MD) and the Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology (Newark, DE). During the 5-year grant, the team aims to develop an effective monoclonal antibody (mAb)-based drug against Sudan ebolavirus.
Currently, there are no established treatments for Ebola infection. Over the past five years, three Ebola outbreaks involving a Sudan strain of the virus have occurred. The need for strain-specific Ebola countermeasures is imperative for treating infected patients and effectively containing outbreaks. The research team looks forward to developing a promising and urgently needed Ebola treatment that targets the Sudan strain of the virus.