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news.CytRx Corporation's HIV vaccine, known as DP6-001, has demonstrated promising action against the deadly virus in a phase I study that is currently underway.
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In the study, the drug was well-tolerated, stimulated immune T-cells that can attack AIDS virus-infected cells, and produced potent antibody responses with neutralizing activity against multiple HIV viral strains.
The results were presented at the AIDS Vaccine 2005 International Conference in Montreal by the study’s principal investigator Dr Jeff Kennedy of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS).
The HIV vaccine formulation DP6-001 was created by researchers at UMMS and Advanced BioScience Laboratories, funded under a $16 million five-year HIV vaccine design and development team contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and exclusively licensed to CytRx.
Steven Kriegsman, president and CEO of CytRx, stated, “Based on the strength of these preliminary results, we are already considering further clinical development, as we believe that DP6-001 is a potential breakthrough vaccine.”
The goal of the phase I clinical trial is to assess the ability of the DP6-001 vaccine to safely stimulate both antibody and T-cell immune responses to viral protein antigens in the vaccine, including ‘envelope’, which is also carried by HIV. The envelope antigen is a critical protein on the surface of the AIDS virus that facilitates the infection of humans.
The vaccine initially ‘primes’ the subject’s immune system with injections of DNA that cause the subject’s own cells to produce the HIV envelope proteins, followed by protein ‘boosts’ from an injection that contains the corresponding HIV envelope proteins.