Vaccine developer BigDNA has received notification from the Japanese Patent Office that one of its key patents has been granted in Japan. This new development is an important advancement for the Company as it continues to extend its international reach through an aggressive partnering strategy.

“Chronic hepatitis B infection is a significant global health problem and the need for effective preventative and treatment options is particularly urgent in Asia, where approximately 280 million people are living with this serious, life-threatening disease,” said Karen Jervis, Commercial Director of BigDNA. “This development will further enable the Company to develop its platform vaccine delivery technology in ways that allow it to access such populations.”
In February 2010 Edinburgh based BigDNA Ltd successfully raised £2m of funding from the Venture Fund arm of Scottish Enterprise and private investors. This funding enables the Company to develop its platform vaccine delivery technology towards clinical proof of concept.

The technology being developed by Dr. John March and his team at Roslin Biocentre, uses bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) modified so that they are able to deliver a vaccine. These ‘DNA vaccines’ contain the genetic instructions (DNA) of the disease organism rather than using the organism itself, which conventional vaccines rely upon.

Conventional vaccines can be difficult and expensive to make, requiring specialist facilities and expertise, and sometimes fail to work for some diseases. Bacteriophage DNA vaccines offer the potential for extremely rapid development and manufacture, using relatively simple manufacturing processes (weeks rather than months), critical for certain indications such as emerging or pandemic disease

The Company has expanded rapidly in the last two years, having appointed a team of scientists and advisors. The firm also won the title the “Best new life science firm” from regional development agency Scottish Enterprise.

Chronic hepatitis B is one of the most common chronic infectious diseases globally. According to the American Liver Foundation the hepatitis B virus (HBV) is considerably more infectious than HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The World Health Organization estimates that there are approximately 350 million chronic carriers of the hepatitis B virus. Datamonitor estimates that there are an estimated 31.5 million carriers of HBV in Japan, of which approximately 10% are chronically infected. Carriers of the hepatitis B virus have a 200-fold increased chance of developing primary liver cancer, the most common cancer in the world, and a significant number develop cirrhosis of the liver.


For more information, visit www.bigdna.co.uk or contact Carol Anderson, The Business, T: 0131 718 6022 E: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it