Studies suggested that Vical’s patented vaccine adjuvant, Vaxfectin™, has the potential to be used as a dose-sparing agent with conventional flu vaccines against seasonal or pandemic flu strains.

Vaxfectin™ is the name of Vical’s adjuvant (product that when added to vaccines it increases their immunogenicity, hence provoking a much stronger immune response.) Vical’s avian influenza (flu) DNA vaccine candidate is designed to protect against emerging strains of flu virus that have the potential to cause a pandemic. A single injection of this vaccine candidate provided 100% protection in ferrets against lethal challenge with a highly virulent H5N1 virus (Vietnam/1203/2004). Conventional vaccines under development for avian flu typically have required two or more doses in humans, even with novel adjuvants, to produce the immunogenicity levels expected to provide protection.

This news, which was announced a few months ago, was overlooked. Except for vaccine researchers around the world, the news did not mean anything to analysts and investors who might not know what the word adjuvant means.

Today, more good news came out to announce that Vical’s adjuvant has significantly increased the immune response to a flu vaccine in mice. In an animal study, the company used its Vaxfectin vaccine adjuvant together with Sanofi-Aventis SA’s Fluzone vaccine. The results were very promising. Adding Vical’s adjuvant increased antibody responses by 60 times that of the Fluzone vaccine alone. The addition of Vaxfectin also allowed researchers to use 10 times less vaccine to generate the same or better immune response in the mice, compared with a standard dose of the vaccine alone.

Comments: With the good news about Dendreon’s therapeutic vaccine, interest in vaccine in general is raised, especially about the adjuvants that can enable for robust immune attacks on the foreign invaders or on diseased cells. Vaxfectin™ has demonstrated its power in opening the immune system eyes to the presence of a nasty flu virus and motivated this system to wage a strong attack on the virus. Vical’s adjuvant can boost the effect of many vaccines besides the company’s flu vaccine. It did it with Sanofi-Aventis SA’s Fluzone vaccine, increasing the immune response by 60 times. We are entering the age of vaccines, ppreventive and therapeutics. The developers of vaccines will definitely need to use the most potent adjuvants.

Here is one.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Vical (VICL). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.