Aphios Awarded NIH Grant for CFI Virus and Pathogen Inactivation Technology for Blood Products and Biologics

WOBURN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aphios Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop CFI as a generally-applicable virus and pathogen inactivation technology for human plasma, plasma products and biologics.

The recent outbreaks of potentially pandemic strains of influenza such as the H1N1 swine flu and the H5N1 bird flu, the worldwide AIDS epidemic, the emergence of West Nile virus and Babesia spp, and the periodic emergence of Ebola and SARS as well as the bioterrorism potential have highlighted a persistent concern in the health care community -- the need for effective sterilization techniques for human blood plasma, plasma products and biologics. The causes of the more rapid emergence and spread of these potential "killer" pathogens are not entirely known, but are thought to be caused by some combination of deforestation with urbanization of wild virus habitats, evolutionary mutations and rapid travel between countries around the globe.

Current approaches such as heating or pasteurization; solvent-detergent (SD) technique; Ultra Violet (UV) irradiation; chemical inactivation and filtration are not always effective against a wide spectrum of human and animal viruses, are sometimes encumbered by process-specific deficiencies, and often result in denaturation of the biologics that they are designed to protect. Some of the commercially available methods such as SD are effective in inactivating enveloped viruses, such as HIV, but are not very effective against non-enveloped viruses such as Hepatitis A (HAV) and parvovirus B19.

Aphios’ CFI (critical fluid inactivation) technology works, in part, by first permeating and inflating the virus and pathogen particles with a selected SuperFluids™ gas under pressure. The overfilled particles are then decompressed, and the dense-phase fluid rapidly changes into a gaseous state rupturing the virus and pathogen particles at their weakest points -- very much like the embolic disruption of the ear drums of a scuba diver who surfaces too rapidly. The virus and pathogen particles are thus rendered inactive. The CFI process is purely physical and does not involve the use of heat, chemicals or irradiation that could damage sensitive enzymes and proteins.

According to Dr. Trevor P. Castor, the primary inventor of the Aphios CFI technology: “In addition to its direct applicability to human plasma and plasma proteins, CFI has the capability to clear viruses and pathogens from biotechnology drugs and monoclonal antibodies. It also has the potential for the rapid manufacturing of antiviral human and animal vaccines since protein integrity and antigenicity are retained during the purely physical virus inactivation step.”

The number of the Phase I SBIR grant from NHLBI, NIH is 1R43HL090192-01A2. The content of this press release is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NHLBI and the National Institutes of Health.

Aphios Corporation is a biotechnology company that is developing enabling technology platforms to improve drug discovery, manufacturing delivery and safety as well as enhanced therapeutic products for health maintenance, disease prevention and the treatment of certain cancers, infectious diseases and CNS disorders.