InVitria receives $1.5 million grant for cell-based vaccines

By: Jay Jacoby Wednesday May 30, 2012 0 comments Tags: cell-based vaccines, InVitria, Scott Deeter, Ventria Bioscience

FORT COLLINS - InVitria, a division of Ventria Bioscience, announced it will receive $1.5 million over two years to develop a novel, animal-free, defined cell culture media for the commercial production of cell-based vaccines.

The SBIR grant was awarded by the National Institute of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It will support a collaborative research and development effort between InVitria, the Institute for Antiviral Research at Utah State University, SohoHill Engineering and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Vector-Borne Diseases in Fort Collins.

"Our project is designed to address multiple significant concerns for the vaccine industry," said Scott Deeter, Ventria Bioscience president and CEO. "We expect that the use of animal-free cell culture supplements in place of animal-derived components will enable the development of a defined, animal-free cell culture medium that provides superior performance at a lower cost and - at the same time - answers the call by agencies for a safer alternative to animal-derived components used in vaccines."