PORTLAND, Ore., April 24, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Galena Biopharma (Nasdaq:GALE), a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing innovative, targeted oncology treatments that address major unmet medical needs to advance cancer care, today announced that the 2014 Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer was granted to The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (HJF) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU). The award was presented by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer for work by George Peoples, M.D., chief of surgical oncology at the San Antonio Military Medical Center, and his colleagues, for the licensing of NeuVax™ (nelipepimut-S), a breast cancer vaccine to reduce breast cancer recurrence.
Dr. Peoples and other researchers at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston discovered the E75 peptide, now known as NeuVax. Galena owns the worldwide license for NeuVax for all uses and is currently developing the drug in multiple clinical trials including its pivotal, Phase 3 PRESENT (Prevention of Recurrence in Early-Stage, Node-Positive Breast Cancer with Low to Intermediate HER2 Expression with NeuVax Treatment) study. The official announcement can be found here: USU-HJF Effort to License Promising Breast Cancer Vaccine Wins Award.
“The pioneering scientific and clinical work done by Dr. Peoples and his team has brought NeuVax from discovery to a pivotal Phase 3 trial with the aim of preventing breast cancer recurrence for women with no current treatment options,” said Mark J. Ahn, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Galena Biopharma. “We offer our heartfelt congratulations to the teams at the HJF and USU, and are grateful for our ongoing affiliations with these esteemed organizations.”