Vical

Vical is a company that develops biopharmaceutical products for the prevention and treatment of chronic or life-threatening infectious diseases, based on its patented DNA delivery technologies and other therapeutic approaches. Its core technology provided the cornerstones for two new biopharmaceutical industry sectors: DNA vaccines and non-viral gene therapy. The technology is based on plasmid DNA (pDNA), closed loops of DNA that encode any protein of interest. When injected into tissues such as skeletal muscle or the skin, cells take up pDNA and produce the encoded protein. This allows for pDNA to be used as the basis for a broad range of biopharmaceutical products: infectious disease vaccines, cancer vaccines or immunotherapeutics, and growth factors to stimulate angiogenesis and tissue repair in diseases such as cardiovascular disorders. The company merged with Brickell Biotech.