Shares of Atlanta based biotechnology group GeoVax Labs (NASDAQ: GOVX) are up over 106% on Monday after the company was awarded a grant supporting its development of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded the grant. It will support the company’s ongoing design, construction and preclinical testing of GeoVax’s vaccine candidates in preparation for human clinical trials.
GeoVax’s stock price is up 106.22% at $6.81 per share following the news.
David Dodd, GeoVax’s Chairman & CEO, said the company is “pleased to receive this Phase 1 SBIR funding award, which will supplement the internal resources allocated to our COVID-19 vaccine program and accelerate our progress toward human clinical trials.”
“We appreciate and welcome this support from NIH/NIAID, which follows our signing of a Patent and Biological Materials License Agreement providing GeoVax with access to key NIAID patent rights, and which provides GeoVax with nonexclusive rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize our COVID-19 vaccine,” added Dodd.
GeoVax is leveraging its GV-MVA-VLP platform to research an effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. GeoVax’s vaccine candidates are different from the current vaccines in circulation as they are specifically designed to provide a broader and more long-lived level of protective immunity against COVID-19.