Date: 2015-09-25
Type of information: Collaboration agreement
Compound: AIDS vaccines
Company: Curevac (Germany) International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
Type agreement: collaboration
Action mechanism:
Disease: HIV infection
Details: * On September 10, 2015, the non-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and biopharmaceutical company CureVac are partnering to accelerate the development of AIDS vaccines, utilizing novel immunogens developed by IAVI and partners, delivered via CureVac\'s novel messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. HIV\'s envelope protein or \"trimer\" is the primary target for antibodies that can neutralize a wide range of the virus\' strains, and which hold enormous promise in the quest for efficacious and broadly applicable AIDS vaccines. In a major breakthrough, researchers have recently designed immunogens that successfully mimic this trimer. In this collaboration, IAVI has selected one of its leading HIV trimer constructs to launch the mRNA evaluation in small-scale clinical trials: mRNA that encodes for the chosen trimer mimic will be constructed using CureVac\'s RNActive® technology and injected with the aim of stimulating the body to produce HIV trimer proteins and then related neutralizing antibodies. To date, most AIDS vaccine candidates have been based on DNA, viral vectors or protein. Using mRNA could accelerate the development and testing of AIDS vaccine candidates. Under the terms of the agreement, IAVI will provide several stabilized HIV envelope trimer sequences, which CureVac will transfer into its RNActive® technology for preclinical and clinical development. The partners will work with U.S., German and African health authorities with an eye to initiating clinical trials in 2016.
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