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NanoMedicine Cluster (NMC) - formerly known as the Vaccine Therapy Cluster (VTC) - is a technology consortium (supported by Asboth Oszkar Grant, NKTH) with an entrepreneurial firm in the core that drives the continuous improvements to provide competitive products for the global market through developing products to treat diseases with huge unmet medical need like HIV, cancer, allergy and cardiovascular diseases. To achieve the goal the NMC relies on the proprietary platform vaccination technology of the firm, Genetic Immunity. The NMC joins cooperatively linked participants that have knowledge of manufacture, test, commercialize, improve and expand the vaccine therapy technology. The NMC is an open cluster, plans to expand with companies and institutions investigating, developing and commercializing complementary technologies.
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Research conducted by the disease- & product-specialized teams will produce the product pipeline. New candidate nanomedicines will progress through Genetic Immunity's infrastructure that facilitates the product development from the bench to clinical trials and commercialization. Within 6 years Genetic Immunity will have new nanomedicine therapy medicines (e.g DermaVir Patch) on the world market and the NMC could emerge a worldwide competitive biopharmaceutical cluster.
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NMC provides the infrastructure for research, clinical development and commercialization of proprietary nanomedicines for the treatment of chronic diseases. The partners in the NMC will conduct the new product and service development program. In 2006 Genetic Immunity will continue the HIV DermaVir Patch development program and build the vaccine-manufacturing infrastructure. The Company technology transfer from the USA to Hungary supports the partners to perform research and new product development in the field of nanomedicines. University Szeged and Semmelweis have been performing experiments in mice that might lead to new vaccine candidates for the treatment of allergy and atherosclerosis. The nanomedicine chemistry team (Chemical Research Center of Hungarian Academy of Science) is responsible for studying the nanomedicine structure and for optimizing the nanomedicine products. The diagnostic team at Laszlo Hospital has been performing some of the new immune diagnostic assays required for nanomedicine clinical development. L&iamp;Mark provides the bioinformation technology and knowledge management for the cluster. After the infrastructure is built the product pipeline line will be further expanded with the inclusions of new teams working on R&D of new products in the field of infectious and neoplastic diseases (e.g. new therapeutic vaccine products for hepatitis C and cervical cancer).
Hungary needs a new knowledge-based industry. NMC is starting up a new biopharmaceutical industry of nanomedicines. Since nanomedicine therapy is still in its infancy as an industry, Hungary is equally well-positioned to be the home of this business. Considering the Lisbon strategy of the European Union NMC in Hungary will be one of the few examples, where a European alliance could be superior to the US and Asian competition in this area of biopharmaceuticals. Considering, that DermaVir Patch has the chance to be the first therapeutic nanomedicine against HIV and considering its blockbuster market opportunity, this cluster has the potential to elevate our region to a leading position in the area of biopharmaceuticals. The pipeline products have similar or even larger market opportunities and these all can use the same manufacturing processes which have been developed for the HIV product.
Genetic Immunity plans to create a large scale manufacturing facility for the new nanomedicine products in Hungary ensuring high-tech well-paid manufacturing jobs. These jobs are based on a patented technology and the nanomedicine manufacturing require high quality therefore it cannot be easily transferred to other countries.
Public institutions (universities and hospitals) will benefit from out-licensing opportunities of the technology, teaching activities of PhD and MD students, mobility of researchers and from the changing the environment for entrepreneurship.
Genetic Immunity has the potential to become worldwide leader in the field of nanomedicine therapy and its success depends on the capabilities what pipeline products the cluster develops. Future capabilities require significant investments (e.g. grants, venture capital, government investment), a shift in focus (e.g. on the market and not publication) and learning new processes (technology, regulatory, clinical, business).
Nanomedicines for targeted immune amplification are expected to successfully compete with drugs for the treatment of chronic diseases. Such nanomedicines do not have toxicity limitations because their activity is based on immune responses that already fight against the chronic diseases but ineffectively. Unlike some pharmaceutical treatments, the administration schedule is not a daily task, instead administration is intermittent (e.g. for DermaVir Patch max. 6 times per year ; the patch is on the skin only for 3 hours). Quality of life therefore will improve.
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