WEST BRIDGEWATER, Mass., July 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Boston Biomedica, Inc. (Nasdaq: BBII) announced today that BBI Biotech Research Laboratories (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boston Biomedica) has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant of $100,000 from the National Institutes of Health to support its HIV drug development program. Over the past several years, BBI Biotech has identified several potent HIV drug candidates through its collaboration with Dr. K.H. Lee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Professor Lee, Kenan Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Natural Products Laboratory in the School of Pharmacy, is one of the world's foremost natural product chemists. The goal of the collaboration is to discover novel, orally active HIV drugs by screening plants with a history of successful therapeutic applications in traditional medicine to identify natural products that inhibit HIV replication. Derivatives of these compounds are then synthesized to produce optimized drug candidates with suitable properties for further development.
This innovative approach has proven very productive, resulting in the identification of several diverse chemical families of compounds that are the subject of five issued U.S. patents for which BBI holds the exclusive license. Several of the lead drug candidates potently inhibit replication of clinical HIV isolates and exhibit novel properties compared with currently approved drugs for HIV infection. The SBIR Phase I grant, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH, will help fund the evaluation of these drug candidates for suitability to enter human clinical studies. Dr. Graham P. Allaway, Boston Biomedica's Vice President, Drug Discovery and Principal Investigator on the SBIR grant, said: "We believe this SBIR award provides an independent validation of the potential of our HIV drug candidates. It also makes available additional resources to help expedite the selection and pre-clinical development of our most promising compounds: an important step towards initiating human Phase I Clinical Trials."
Boston Biomedica and UNC recently signed new Sponsored Research and License Agreements that expand their collaboration into other therapeutic areas (see April 29th, 1999 press release). Boston Biomedica's CEO, Mr. Richard T. Schumacher said: "This SBIR award will play an important role in supporting our on-going HIV drug development program. At the same time, based on our proven success in identifying HIV drug candidates, we are now expanding our natural product drug collaboration with UNC to target other medically important viruses and diseases. And as mentioned previously, we are also examining additional growth opportunities for our pharmaceutical program, such as strategic alliances, sub-licenses, and spin-offs".
Boston Biomedica Inc. is a worldwide manufacturer and provider of proprietary quality control products for use with IVD test kits for the detection, analysis and monitoring of infectious diseases, including AIDS, Hepatitis, Lyme Disease and ToRCH. The Company's products are used by clinical and research laboratories, blood banks, and IVD manufacturers to help ensure the accuracy of infectious disease test results through the routine monitoring of test performance. The Company also manufactures diagnostic test kit components and laboratory instrumentation, provides specialty laboratory testing and contract research services, and has significant R&D investments in pressure cycling technology (PCT) and drug discovery.
Statements contained in this news release that state the Company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions of the future are "forward-looking" statements. It is important to note that the Company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those projected include the possibility that due to unforeseen technical, financial and other difficulties Boston Biomedica may not be able to develop its HIV drug candidates and other therapeutic products into commercially successful products, that such development may take longer than currently expected, or that the Company will be unable to reproduce its early, potent inhibition and novel property results on its existing drug candidates. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained from time to time in the Company's SEC filings, including but not limited to the Company's report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 1999. Copies of this document may be obtained by contacting the Company or the SEC.
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SOURCE Boston Biomedica, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.bbii.com
CONTACT: Richard T. Schumacher, Pres. & CEO or Kevin W. Quinlan, CFO or William R. Prather, M.D., Sr. VP Business Dvlp. of Boston Biomedica, Inc., 508-580-1900
