Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.GeoVax Labs, a biopharmaceutical company, has announced the first injections in its Phase IIa human clinical vaccine trial for its candidate HIV/AIDS vaccine.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
The trial, designated HVTN 205, is being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). The HVTN, funded and supported by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a clinical trials network dedicated to the development and testing of HIV/AIDS vaccines.
The HVTN has sponsored over 80 Phase I trials for the initial evaluation of safety and immunogenicity of candidate HIV/AIDS vaccines. The results of these trials have merited only five Phase IIa trials since 1992. Progressing to Phase II is a significant step for GeoVax. The company has reported that the first injections for the Phase IIa trial were conducted at the HVTN network sites at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and Vanderbilt University, Nashville.
The trial will include a total of 225 volunteers (150 vaccine recipients and 75 placebo recipients) and take place at 13 HVTN sites: 11 in North America and two in South America.
Sites in the US include Emory University, Atlanta; Harvard Medical School, Boston; Vanderbilt University, Nashville; University of Rochester; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; the San Francisco Department of Public Health; University of Alabama, Birmingham and sites at Columbia University, Union Square, and the Bronx in New York City. In South America, participants are to be enrolled in Peru at sites in Iquitos and Miraflores.
In addition to the preventative vaccine entering Phase IIa, GeoVax also is working towards initiating human clinical trials testing its vaccines as potential therapies for people who are already infected with HIV.