Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 3393

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 3393
---
 by resistant individuals and then, importantly,
removes, or excludes as vaccine targets, any antigens that are also recognized by susceptible individuals. This removal phase is essential
as any antigen that is recognized by antibodies made by susceptible individuals cannot possibly be involved in providing protection.

We
believe that the WPDS platform may be applicable to any human pathogen for which a subset of humans develops antibody-mediated resistance
to infection/reinfection while a subset of humans remains susceptible. We believe that the platform may also enable us to identify targets
against other infectious diseases.

The
WPDS platform led to the discovery of novel targets against malaria, which are the basis for our anti-PfGARP therapeutics programs (ODA-611
and ODA-579) and for our vaccine program targeting PfGARP and PfSEA-1 (ODA-570).

Malaria
Background: Epidemiology and Lifecycle

Plasmodium
falciparum malaria is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, infecting 200-300 million individuals and killing
nearly 500,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa each year. Nearly half of the world’s population, consisting of more than three billion
individuals, is at risk of malaria infection. Recent estimates indicate that even these staggering figures significantly underestimate
the actual disease burden. In addition, people from the United States and Europe (including military personnel) who travel to malaria
endemic regions are also at risk of contracting malaria.

Human
malaria is caused by infection with one of five species of protozoan parasite of the genus Plasmodium. Infection with just one of these
species, P. falciparum, accounts for more than 95% of all malaria-related deaths. Plasmodium parasites have a complex lifecycle (Fig.
14), which begins when humans become infected following the bite of an infected anopheline mosquito. During blood feeding, an infected
female mosquito (only female mosquitos feed on blood, which is necessary for egg laying) injects a parasite stage called a sporozoite
into the human blood stream. These sporozoites leave the blood stream and rapidly (within 5 minutes) infect liver cells. Within the liver
cells, the sporozoites multiply asexually with each sporozoite giving rise to up to 10,000 merozoites. These merozoites rupture out of
the liver cell and each merozoite rapidly infects (within