EXCLUSIVE: Ocean Biomedical's Co-Founder Outlines Detailed Data From Malaria Vaccine At Conference

Ocean Biomedical Inc's OCEA co-founder, Jonathan Kurtis, presented details of the company's malaria vaccine and treatment approach at the PATH Malaria's annual retreat in Washington, DC.
Most recently, Kurtis received a Notice of Allowance from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for his U.S. patent application covering a therapeutic and prophylactic monoclonal antibody that kills falciparum malaria parasites.
Dr. Kurtis shared details of Ocean Biomedical's anti-malaria vaccine that targets three critical 'blood stage' events: entry into the red blood cell (via discovered PfXXX), intracellular development (via PfGARP), and escape of parasites from the red blood cells (via PfSEA-1).
The company is also working to develop the PfGARP component as a therapeutic target for a whole new class of antimalarial drugs.
Pfxxx blocks invasion; PfGARP kills intercellular parasites; PfSEA1 blocks egress.
Vaccination of monkeys with mRNA encoding PfGARP protects against the P. falciparum (malaria-causing parasites) challenge.
In addition to his vaccine development work, Dr. Kurtis presented new data demonstrating that PfGARP is critical for regulating parasite density and thus results in increased reproductive fitness of the parasite.
Dr. Kurtis presented data on a family of small molecule drugs highly specific for PfGARP binding are non-toxic in multiple in vitro and in vivo systems, have favorable pharmacokinetic properties, and rapidly kill P. falciparum parasites in animal models.
Malaria killed approximately 627,000 individuals in 2022. Artemisinin-based drug therapy remains the mainstay of treatment, but the spread of parasites resistant to this family of compounds is threatening.
Price Action: OCEA shares are up 5.52% at $7.07 premarket on the last check Tuesday.

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