Atlanta-based GeoVax Labs Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV and other infectious agents, said Thursday it has entered into an agreement with a French firm for a joint collaboration to manufacture a component of GeoVax's HIV medication.

The deal is designed to combine Vivalis' "cutting-edge vaccine manufacturing technology" with GeoVax's HIV vaccine, said Robert McNally, president and CEO of the Atlanta firm, which is publicly owned.

He said the "breakthrough technology developed by Vivalis will create a new standard for the manufacture of a component of the GeoVax HIV/AIDS vaccine. The collaboration will make current manufacturing technologies, which have limited production capabilities, less competitive," McNally said.

He said the deal is "extremely significant and a giant step forward" toward production of an HIV vaccine.

Earlier this month, GeoVax announced it had made progress toward entering Phase 2 preventative human clinical trial testing and plans this fall to proceed into therapeutic human trials with its AIDS vaccine, McNally said.

The Phase 2 trial, to be conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and supported by HIV Vaccine Trials Network, will involve 225 healthy volunteers from the United States and South America.

The trial will "further evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the GeoVax preventative vaccine," he said.

McNally said "this development and manufacturing collaboration with Vivalis will help secure the future production needs for GeoVax."