AVI BioPharma

AVI BioPharma Inc. is a medical research and drug development company with corporate offices in Portland, Oregon, United States, and laboratories in Corvallis, Oregon. It was incorporated in 1980. Its primary products in development are Morpholino oligos first discovered by James Summerton.

Morpholinos have been tested for a wide range of applications including prevention of cardiac restenosis after angioplasty, treatment of coronary artery bypass grafts, treatment of polycystic kidney disease, and redirection of drug metabolism. Morpholinos have been used in preclinical studies to inhibit replication of West Nile Virus, SARS, Hepatitis C, dengue fever, Ebola and Calicivirus, all of which are single stranded RNA viruses. However, clinical studies have not demonstrated significant effects in humans and there are no approved drugs in this class.

In addition to development of Morpholinos as therapeutics, AVI has conducted six human trials for colorectal and pancreatic cancers using their cancer vaccine AVICINE.