Inviragen to present data on CHIKV vaccine at ASTMH meeting

Inviragen, a biotechnology company developing vaccines to protect against infectious diseases worldwide, together with investigators at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and the Division of Vector Borne Diseases (DVBD) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will make an oral presentation today at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) meeting on preclinical results of the Company's experimental chikungunya virus (CHIKV) vaccine. Data presented here demonstrate that the vaccine is safe and generates protective immune responses after a single dose in several validated animal models of CHIKV infection. The meeting is being held from November 3-7, 2010 in the Marriott Atlanta Marquis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

“In 2011, we plan to complete the ongoing animal model studies, the manufacturing and the preclinical safety testing needed to initiate human clinical trials.”

"These results are very promising and support our plan for further development of this experimental CHIKV vaccine," commented Dr. Jorge Osorio, Inviragen's Chief Scientific Officer. "In 2011, we plan to complete the ongoing animal model studies, the manufacturing and the preclinical safety testing needed to initiate human clinical trials."

This experimental CHIKV vaccine was initially constructed by Ilya Frolov, Ph.D., Scott Weaver, Ph.D. and colleagues at UTMB by making defined alterations in the regions of the CHIKV genome that control viral gene expression. The resulting recombinant virus is genetically stable, shows reduced replication in host mammals, and is unable to replicate in mosquitoes, the vector for chikungunya transmission. The CHIKV vaccine candidate was tested by scientists at Inviragen, UTMB and DVBD in multiple mouse models of CHIKV infection. The vaccine was found to be safe and immunogenic generating neutralizing antibody responses after a single administration. 100% of mice immunized with the CHIKV vaccine candidate survived, showing no clinical signs of disease following challenge with wild type or mouse-adapted CHIKV.

"No approved treatment or vaccine currently exists for CHIKV, which causes debilitating disease in millions of people in India, Southeast Asia, Africa and recently in Europe," said Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at UTMB. "A safe and effective vaccine could limit the worldwide spread of this virus."

The oral presentation of these preclinical results, entitled "Novel Chimeric Vaccines for Chikungunya: Immunogenicity and Efficacy Studies in A129 Mice" will be presented at the ASTMH annual meeting on November 4, 2010 at 1:30pm ET in Scientific Session 39, "Viruses I" by Dr. Charalambos Partidos, Senior Scientist at Inviragen.

The ASTMH annual meeting draws more than 3,500 global health professionals from around the world, and features more than 1,000 scientific presentations.