IRVINE, Calif. – Sep. 13, 2022 – AIVITA Biomedical, Inc., a biotech company specializing in innovative cell applications, today announced that chairman and CEO Hans Keirstead, Ph.D., has received the Orange County Business Journal’s 2022 Innovator of the Year Award. The annual award recognizes Orange County innovators who are creating game-changing ideas, processes, products, services, and business models.

Dr. Keirstead was honored with the award for his efforts in the biomedical sector over the past year, which include the continued development of a platform cancer immunotherapy currently being prepared for Phase 3 trials in glioblastoma. The personal cancer immunotherapy trains the patient’s immune system to seek out the antigenic signature of their specific cancer’s tumor-initiating cells. Importantly, AIVITA’s personal immunotherapy was recently shown in Phase 2 testing to enhance survival in glioblastoma patients by over 50%, over and above the current standard of care.

In the past 12-months Dr. Keirstead also led the development of a novel personal vaccine kit for the prevention of COVID-19. Recently published data from Phase 1 & 2 clinical trials of the vaccine demonstrated the fewest and lowest grade adverse events of any available COVID-19 vaccine, and 97% efficacy as demonstrated by cellular immunity to the virus. Shipping as a kit of materials that enables low-skill staff to manufacture the vaccine at point-of-care, AIVITA’s vaccine represents an entirely new vaccine modality and distribution model in the fight against COVID-19. The benefits of such an approach include its scale-up potential and reach, not requiring frozen storage to ship, and its ability to rapidly respond to emerging threats by swapping out the included target viral antigen. The personalized vaccine concept developed by AIVITA can theoretically be made to target any viral antigen source, effectively making it a universal vaccine platform.

About AIVITA Biomedical

Founded in 2016 by pioneers in the cell therapy industry, AIVITA Biomedical, Inc. utilizes its expertise in cell growth and directed, high-purity differentiation to enable safe, efficient and economical manufacturing systems which support its therapeutic pipeline. Our cancer immunotherapy targets the seed of all cancers, tumor-initiating cells, with a unique pan-antigenic approach that targets all neoantigens specific to the patient’s cancer. Our patient-specific cancer treatments have shown tremendous promise in eradicating tumors, without harmful side effects, in melanoma and glioblastoma clinical studies. Our COVID-19 Vaccine Enabling Kit is targeted to emerging nations enabling point-of-care vaccine production in minimally equipped facilities by minimally trained third-party technicians.

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