Background
The most significant innovations on human health have occurred through the directed manipulation of the immune system. Vaccines that stimulate durable immunity protect against endemic and emerging infectious diseases, and a variety of immunotherapeutics show great promise in treating chronic infections and cancer.
Current immunization technologies have proven tremendously successful in saving lives and reducing the world-wide burden of disease. Currently, 43 vaccines have been licensed in the US for the treatment of 22 human pathogens. The 2007 annual report from the CDC indicated that seven of these vaccines prevented more than 14 million cases of disease, resulting in a direct savings of nearly $10 billion.
Despite the availability of these vaccines, the threat from infectious disease is alarmingly high. Millions of deaths per year are caused by HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and respiratory infections. The world is also threatened by naturally emerging and re-emerging diseases, including pandemic influenza and SARS. Thus, there is a tremendous need for accelerating vaccine development. Unfortunately, current vaccine technologies are applicable to only a subset of disease and are not readily transferable to diseases with unmet medical need.
Fortunately, recent advances in molecular immunology have led to new approaches to vaccine design and development. Immune Design Corp. believes that vaccine discovery can now be accelerated by using its proprietary technologies that address three main principles; targeting antigen delivery to dendritic cells; using Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists to potentiate DC activation; and delivering vaccines to DC-rich regions in the body.
The vision for our company is propelled by the strengths of our founders and management team who are preeminent and world-renown in the fields of immunology, infection disease, and vaccine development. Dr. Steve Reed, who also serves as CEO, has a strong record as an entrepreneur and scientist. Dr. David Baltimore, recipient of the Nobel Prize and Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), brings tremendous expertise in virology and immunology, and along with co-founders Drs. Lili Yang and Pin Wang are responsible for the development of our proprietary Lentivector vaccine technology. Finally, Dr. Larry Corey, co-founder and Scientific Advisory Board chair, is an internationally recognized clinician and researcher who has advanced our understanding of the pathogenesis and treatment of viral disease.