GeneMedicine Wins SBIR Grants - Company Business and Marketing

Applied Genetics News, April, 1999

GeneMedicine, Inc. (8301 New Trails Dr., The Woodlands, TX; Tel: 281/364-1150, Fax: 281/361-0858, Website: gmed.com) was awarded two small business innovation research (SBIR) grants totaling $790,691 by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of tissue-specific, gene therapy expression systems.

One grant is a phase II effort, entitled "Muscle-Specific Gene Therapy for Ischemia" for which GeneMedicine was awarded $686,280. In previous studies funded by a phase I SBIR grant, GeneMedicine researchers isolated seven muscle-specific gene promoters, all of which elevated gene expression. The goal of the phase II study is to apply these promoters to the development of non-viral gene therapies for ischemia. The company will select an optimal promoter to be used with a human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression plasmid. VEGF has been shown to induce angiogenesis, thereby restoring blood flow to ischemic tissues. GeneMedicine intends to evaluate the gene therapy system in a rabbit ischemia model and complete necessary preclinical studies for submission of an IND. The second SBIR grant is a phase I award for $104,431 for a study entitled "Plasmids with Improved Expression Duration for Cancer." The study is designed to develop non-viral DNA-based therapeutics with enhanced duration of gene expression to treat squamous cell cancer. GeneMedicine will attempt to identify novel promoters that extend and enhance gene expression in tumor cells following injection. The principle investigator on both grants is Jeff Nordstrom, director and program leader of the GeneSwitch program at GeneMedicine.