VaxGen was a

biopharmaceutical A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biological medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, t ...

company based in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. Founded in 1995 and based in

South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially termed "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. History P ...

, California, the company was engaged in the development of vaccines that immunize against infectious disease, notably

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

. On July 28, 2010, VaxGen Inc. was acquired by diaDexus, Inc. in a reverse merger transaction.; diaDexus filed for bankruptcy in 2016. VaxGen, Inc. does not have significant operations.

AIDSVAX

In the 1990s, VaxGen developed and began trials of an

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifi ...

called

AIDSVAX AIDSVAX is an experimental HIV vaccine that was developed originally at Genentech in San Francisco, California, and later tested by the VaxGen company, a Genentech offshoot. The development and trials of the vaccine received significant coverage ...

. The

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID's mis ...

(NIAID) worked with Vaxgen when Vaxgen was developing its AIDS vaccine. Specifically, NIAID and Vaxgen worked together on research projects related to the body's

immune response An immune response is a physiological reaction which occurs within an organism in the context of inflammation for the purpose of defending against exogenous factors. These include a wide variety of different toxins, viruses, intra- and extracellula ...

to the vaccine. As of 1998, according to NIAID, "The three-year study f AIDSVAXis the first large-scale trial of an HIV preventive vaccine, and will involve 5,000 volunteers at about 40 clinical sites in North America." Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "The effort to develop a safe and effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS is a global imperative and the highest priority of the NIH AIDS research program." However, in 2003, it was announced that the preliminary trials of the vaccine, conducted in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and North America, had been unsuccessful. The company's analysis of its results, which resulted in some potentially positive outcomes among patient subgroups, was criticized by statisticians as inappropriate.

Anthrax vaccine

Vaxgen had focused its recent efforts on a new form of

anthrax vaccine Anthrax vaccines are vaccines to prevent the livestock and human disease anthrax, caused by the bacterium ''Bacillus anthracis''. They have had a prominent place in the history of medicine, from Pasteur's pioneering 19th-century work with cattle ...

, for which it was awarded a $877 million contract to provide the vaccine under the

Project Bioshield Act Project Bioshield, formally known as the Project Bioshield Act was enacted by the United States Congress in 2004 calling for $5 billion for purchasing vaccines that would be used in the event of a bioterrorist attack. This was a ten-year progra ...

. In December 2006, the

United States Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

(HHS) unilaterally withdrew the $877 million contract, sending the stock tumbling as low as $1.20 per share.

References

External links

Historically was http://www.VaxGen.com. This URL is no longer for the Vaxgen, Inc. in this article. Pharmaceutical companies of the United States Health care companies based in California Insolvent companies {{Med-company-stub