GenVec Receives Second-Year Funding from NIAID for HIV Vaccine Contract: Work to Include Novel Vaccine Development and Production Scale-up Business Wire
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GenVec Receives Second-Year Funding from NIAID for HIV Vaccine Contract: Work to Include Novel Vaccine Development and Production Scale-up

Business Wire - October 2, 2007


GAITHERSBURG, Md. -- GenVec, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNVC) announced today that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has executed its first option period (year two) under a previously announced five-year, $52 million contract with GenVec for the production of HIV vaccines. GenVec will receive up to $5.1 million for the second year of activities. These funds will support the transfer and scale-up of the company's manufacturing and purification technologies to the NIAID Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center's (VRC) Vaccine Pilot Plant in Frederick, Maryland, which produces materials for clinical research.

The scope of work includes the development of new HIV vaccine candidates based on GenVec's proprietary Ad41 vector and production cell line technologies. Ad41 vaccines are intended to block HIV transmission by enhancing immunity in the mucosal surfaces through which HIV enters the body. As part of this contract modification, the VRC has also renewed its non-exclusive research license to GenVec's proprietary adenovector, production cell line, manufacturing process, and formulation technologies that will enable production of next-generation HIV vaccines. Ad41-based vaccines expand GenVec's adenovector technology platform to three distinct serotypes.

GenVec and the VRC have partnered on HIV vaccine development for several years under a Collaborative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) utilizing GenVec's technologies. Under a separate contract, GenVec has produced the adenovector-based HIV vaccine that has been tested in approximately 1,400 subjects in sixteen NIAID-sponsored Phase I and Phase II clinical trials.

"We appreciate NIAID's decision to execute its renewal option under our contract and support the role of GenVec's technologies in developing novel, effective HIV vaccines," stated Douglas J. Swirsky, GenVec's Chief Financial Officer.

About GenVec

GenVec, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutic drugs and vaccines. GenVec's lead product, TNFerade(TM) is currently in a pivotal clinical study (PACT) in locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Additional clinical trials are in progress in rectal cancer, head and neck cancer and melanoma. GenVec also uses its proprietary adenovector technology to develop vaccines for infectious diseases including HIV, malaria, foot-and-mouth disease, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and influenza. Additional information about GenVec is available at www.genvec.com and in the company's various filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Statements herein relating to future financial or business performance, conditions or strategies and other financial and business matters, including expectations regarding future revenues and operating expenses, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. GenVec cautions that these forward-looking statements are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which change over time. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements or historical experience include risks and uncertainties, including the failure by GenVec to secure and maintain relationships with collaborators; risks relating to the early stage of GenVec's product candidates under development; uncertainties relating to clinical trials; risks relating to the commercialization, if any, of GenVec's proposed product candidates; dependence on the efforts of third parties; dependence on intellectual property; and risks that we may lack the financial resources and access to capital to fund our operations. Further information on the factors and risks that could affect GenVec's business, financial conditions and results of operations, are contained in GenVec's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which are available at www.sec.gov. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and GenVec assumes no duty to update forward-looking statements.

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Contacts:

GenVec, Inc.

Director, Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Sharon L. Weinstein, 240-632-5511

sweinstein@genvec.com


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