Vical Incorporated (NASDAQ:VICL) has announced that its licensee Merial Limited, a joint venture of Merck & Co., Inc. and sanofi-aventis, received notification of conditional approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to market a therapeutic DNA vaccine designed to treat melanoma, a serious form of cancer, in dogs.

The approval triggers a $0.2 million milestone payment to Vical. “Conditional approval” means the product has been shown to be safe and have a reasonable expectation of efficacy in treating melanoma. The designation allows Merial to market the therapeutic vaccine while collecting additional efficacy data to support full marketing approval.

“This canine melanoma therapeutic DNA vaccine is the first companion animal product to receive conditional approval for our licensee Merial,” said Vijay B. Samant, Vical’s President and Chief Executive Officer, “which represents a significant advancement for our DNA delivery platform technology, building on the previous approval of a vaccine for farm-raised salmon for another of our licensees. Through our independent and partnered programs, we continue advancing toward initial approvals of DNA-based human health products for infectious diseases, cancer, and angiogenesis. We believe the progress of this DNA-based therapeutic vaccine for canine melanoma bodes well for DNA- based approaches for human melanoma. We are particularly encouraged by the prospects for our Allovectin-7(R) DNA-based immunotherapeutic for patients with metastatic melanoma.”

About Canine Melanoma
Melanoma is an aggressive form of cancer that commonly occurs in the dog’s mouth, toes or footpads, and is virtually always malignant at these sites. Normal treatment for canine melanoma includes surgery, radiation, and combination chemotherapy, but even after successful treatment, the melanoma often recurs. Merial’s melanoma therapeutic DNA vaccine is designed as an adjunct to treat melanoma in dogs.

About Vical
Vical researches and develops biopharmaceutical products based on its patented DNA delivery technologies for the prevention and treatment of serious or life-threatening diseases. Potential applications of the company’s DNA delivery technology include DNA vaccines for infectious diseases or cancer, in which the expressed protein is an immunogen; cancer immunotherapeutics, in which the expressed protein is an immune system stimulant; and cardiovascular therapies, in which the expressed protein is an angiogenic growth factor. The company is developing certain infectious disease vaccines and cancer therapeutics internally. In addition, the company collaborates with major pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies that give it access to complementary technologies or greater resources. These strategic partnerships provide the company with mutually beneficial opportunities to expand its product pipeline and address significant unmet medical needs. Additional information on Vical is available at www.vical.com.