New Partnership Develops Hepatitis C DNA Vaccine
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Inovio Biomedical Partner Tripep Files Application for Phase I Clinical Study of Hepatitis C DNA Vaccine
SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Inovio Biomedical Corporation (AMEX:INO), a leader in enabling the development of DNA vaccines using electroporation-based DNA delivery, announced today that its partner, Tripep AB of Sweden, has filed an application for a phase I clinical study with the Swedish Medical Products Agency. The application is designed to permit initial clinical testing of Tripep’s proprietary DNA vaccine, ChronVac-C®, administered using Inovio’s MedPulser® DNA Delivery System. This combination is designed to activate a T-cell response capable of clearing hepatitis C virus. Tripep intends to conduct a phase I clinical study in healthy volunteers at the Center for Gastroenterology at Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden beginning in early 2007.
“Our partnership with Tripep has rapidly moved this vaccine from concept to initial clinical evaluation in less than a year,” stated Avtar Dhillon, MD, Inovio’s president and CEO. “This vaccine trial represents the first study in man of an infectious disease vaccine delivered with electroporation and we are excited about the product’s potential.”
About Inovio’s DNA Delivery Technology
DNA vaccines have the potential to by-pass the numerous problems that plague conventional vaccines. For example, DNA vaccines may be better in stimulating cellular immunity necessary to fight chronic infection or diseases such as cancer. Despite this promise, vaccination using DNA plasmids alone, without enhanced delivery, has not been shown to reach the threshold for clinical benefit.
Intramuscular delivery of DNA vaccines using Inovio’s proprietary electroporation technology has been shown in primate studies to boost the immune response by orders of magnitude over DNA plasmid alone. Plasmid-based vaccines induced higher levels of antibodies and T-cell responses when delivered via electroporation, suggesting the potential to provide better protection from infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C.
ChronVac-C(R) is designed to be a therapeutic DNA vaccine that can stimulate the body’s immune system. Animal experiments have demonstrated that ChronVac-C vaccination activated B-cells and T-cells (the latter being regarded as the most significant to clearing the chronic infection relating to hepatitis C) that killed cells producing HCV protein. In humans, the ChronVac-C DNA plasmid will be injected into muscle tissue, where vaccinations are usually given, and taken up by muscle cells with the assistance of Inovio’s electroporation-based DNA delivery system. These muscle cells would be expected to then produce predetermined proteins that may activate the body’s immune system to attack all cells producing HCV proteins.
Source: Inovio Biomedical Corporation
