QUEBEC CITY, Feb. 3, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Medicago Inc. (TSX : MDG), a
biotechnology company focused on developing highly effective and
competitive vaccines based on proprietary manufacturing technologies
and Virus-Like Particles (VLPs), today announced it plans to invest
approximately $4 million to enhance the capacity of the pilot
production facility located in Quebec City. The Company expects this
investment to accelerate preclinical and clinical development timelines
of future product candidates. This new investment includes capital
expenditures and labour costs, as well as preclinical studies for a
rabies vaccine and other products.
"Investing in our Quebec City facility is an important step for Medicago
as we look towards expanding our product candidate pipeline," said
Andrew Sheldon, President and CEO of Medicago. "We are happy to invest
in our local community with the addition of approximately 20 new
employees in 2012."
"We would like to thank CQDM for their past support of the VLPExpress platform, which has allowed us to accelerate our discovery and
development of new vaccines," said Louis-Philippe Vezina, Chief
Scientific Officer of Medicago. "The VLPExpress platform is now a key component in the development of our new
products."
In 2009, Medicago was awarded $1.77 million in funding by the Quebec
Consortium for Drug Discovery (CQDM) to support the development of VLPExpress, an automated high-throughput platform enabling the rapid expression,
purification and testing of VLPs to identify the best antigen
presentations for a disease-causing agent within ten weeks.
"Medicago was one of the recipients of the first CQDM competition. Our
financial support and unique collective approach allowed Medicago to
strengthen its leadership position and increase its capacity to develop
new products," said Max Fehlmann, President and CEO of CQDM. "We are
very proud to be a part of Medicago's remarkable success. This
reinforces the role of CQDM in promoting innovation and creating
economic value for the research community in Quebec."
About Medicago
Medicago is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel
vaccines and therapeutic proteins to address a broad range of
infectious diseases worldwide. The Company is committed to providing
highly effective and competitive vaccines and therapeutic proteins
based on its proprietary VLP and manufacturing technologies. Medicago
is a worldwide leader in the development of VLP vaccines using a
transient expression system which produces recombinant vaccine antigens
in plants. This technology has potential to offer more potent vaccines
with speed and cost advantages over competitive technologies, enabling
the development of a vaccine for testing in approximately one month
after the identification and reception of genetic sequences from a
pandemic strain. This production time frame has the potential to allow
vaccination of the population before the first wave of a pandemic, and
supply large volumes of vaccine antigens to the world market. Medicago
also intends to expand development into other areas such as biosimilars
and biodefense products where the benefits of our technologies can make
a significant difference. Additional information about Medicago is
available at www.medicago.com.
About the CQDM
The Québec Consortium for Drug Discovery (CQDM) is a meeting ground for
all stakeholders in biopharmaceutical research. Its principal mission
is to fund research projects carried out in partnership between the
academic and hospital milieus in the public sector and the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the private sector. An
innovative Canadian initiative, the CQDM has a twofold goal: to
accelerate the drug discovery process and to develop safer and more
effective drugs. Project funding is made possible through contributions
from the Ministère du Développement Économique, de l'Innovation et de
l'Exportation (MDEIE) du Québec, the Fonds de recherche Québec - Santé
(FRQ-S), the Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE),
Pfizer Canada, AstraZeneca, Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.,
GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly Canada Inc. For more information: www.cqdm.org.
Forward Looking Statements
This news release includes certain forward-looking statements that are
based upon current expectations, which involve risks and uncertainties
associated with Medicago's business and the environment in which the
business operates. Any statements contained herein that are not
statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking,
including those identified by the expressions "anticipate", "believe",
"plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", and similar expressions to the
extent they relate to Medicago or its management. The forward-looking
statements are not historical facts, but reflect Medicago's current
expectations regarding future results or events. These forward-looking
statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current
expectations, including the matters discussed under "Risks Factors and
Uncertainties" in Medicago's Annual Information Form filed on March 31,
2011 with the regulatory authorities. Medicago assumes no obligation to
update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why
actual results could differ from those reflected in the forward-looking
statements.
SOURCE Medicago Inc.