Industry Updates
Untitled Document
September 2011
Tackling DNA Vaccine Production
DNA vaccines represent a simple, elegant, and straightforward approach. They
do not require the handling of live, unstable, and dangerous pathogens; they
can be produced and ramped up rapidly to confront epidemics;
and because they are composed of DNA they are stable at room temperature,
a claim that cannot be made for many proteins
July 2011
Vical and Astellas Announce Worldwide License
Agreements for TransVax™ Cytomegalovirus Vaccine
Vical Incorporated and Astellas Pharma Inc.today announced that they have signed
exclusive license agreements for the United States and for all territories in the rest
of world outside the United States to develop and commercialize TransVax™,
Vical’s therapeutic vaccine designed to control cytomegalovirus (CMV)
reactivation in transplant recipients
January 2011
Profectus BioSciences Announces Initiation of Clinical Trial of IL-12 Enhanced
Therapeutic HIV DNA Vaccine Delivered Using Electroporation
The phase 1, placebo-controlled, dose-escalation study will enroll 60 HIV-
infected subjects on stable anti-retroviral therapy. It will assess the safety
and immunogenicity of a fixed dose of the Profectus therapeutic multi-antigen
HIV pDNA vaccine administered with escalating doses of GENEVAX™ IL-12
pDNA adjuvant and delivered with the TriGrid device…
December 2010
Preclinical Efficacy of Inovio Pharmaceuticals’ Smallpox DNA Vaccine Featured in
The Journal of Infectious Diseases
The study demonstrated that a synthetic, multivalent, low-injection volume,
highly concentrated DNA vaccine delivered by a minimally invasive, novel
skin electroporation microarray can generate potent and multi-functional
immunity in monkeys and offer protection from a highly pathogenic monkeypox
challenge. The diverse, high-titer antibody response produced against eight
different DNA-encoded antigens delivered simultaneously as a single
formulation…
Protection against H1N1 influenza challenge by a DNA vaccine expressing H3/H1
subtype hemagglutinin combined with MHC class II-restricted epitopes
The protective hemagglutinin (HA) antigens from H5/H7/H9 subtypes were
screened for MHC II class-restricted epitopes overlapping with predicted B
cell epitopes. We then constructed a DNA plasmid vaccine, pV-H3-EHA-H1,
based on HA antigens from human influenza H3/H1 subtypes combined with
the H5/H7/H9 subtype Th/B epitope box…
November 2010
Interleukin-13 receptor alpha2 DNA prime boost vaccine induces tumor immunity
in murine tumor model
DNA vaccines represent an attractive approach for cancer treatment by inducing
active T cell and B cell immune responses to tumor antigens. Previous studies
have shown that interleukin-13 receptor alpha2 chain (IL-13Ralpha2), a tumor-
associated antigen is a promising target for cancer immunotherapy as high
levels of IL-13Ralpha2 are expressed on a variety of human tumors…
Clinical Trials of an Anti-HIV DNA-Vaccine Started
First Russian anti-HIV DNA-vaccine, created in St. Petersburg, consists of a
fragment of a virus’s genome, responsible for its proliferation in human cells.
Preclinical trials on guinea pigs, mice and dogs showed that the vaccine is
harmless and effective against components of HIV A subtype…
October 2010
DNA minivectors provide new gene therapy tool
Tiny wound-up circular bits of DNA that carry a short “hairpin” of RNA could
prove a solution to the quest for a non-toxic, long-lived gene therapy vector
designed to silence cancer genes in tumor cells, said researchers from Baylor
College of Medicinee and The Methodist Hospital Research Institute…
