Biocine
Executive Summary
Experimental post-infection hepatitis C vaccine from the Chiron/Ciba-Geigy vaccine joint venture is targeted to move into clinical trials in the "second half" of 1994 based on the vaccine's demonstrated protection against the liver disease in an 11 chimpanzee study, Chiron Chairman Ed Penhoet advises Alex. Brown health care conference May 10. Five of the seven chimps immunized with the vaccine 30-40 weeks prior to challenges with infected serum did not contract infections, while all four of the control chimps challenged did get infections. The chimps have been followed a minimum of six months. The immunized chimps that became infected had weak antibody responses. In one of the two infected chimps, "there was a significant delay in the onset of infection as compared with the four non-immunized control animals," the company notes. The vaccines use two HCV envelope region antigens combined with the adjuvant MF59 or MF75 combined with muramyle tripeptide.