Acambis: Early phase 2 results for West Nile virus vaccine 'encouraging'

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, Sept. 12 - Acambis plc announced Tuesday "encouraging" preliminary results from the first component of a phase 2 clinical trial of its investigational vaccine against West Nile virus, ChimeriVaxTM-West Nile.

In the first part of this trial, the Cambridge, England, biotechnology company said it evaluated the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of a single dose of ChimeriVax-West Nile in healthy adults aged 18 to 40.

In total, 112 healthy adults were enrolled into this part of the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, which tested three different dose levels of ChimeriVax-West Nile, according to a company news release.

The primary immunogenicity endpoint in the trial was seroconversion rate, which is the percentage of subjects who generated neutralizing antibodies at a titre of at least 1:10. Over 97% of all subjects who received ChimeriVax-West Nile seroconverted 28 days after a single vaccination. Most of the adverse events were mild in nature, officials said.

The findings will enable the company to advance its phase 2 trial into older adults, including those within the 50-plus age group who are considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be most at risk from severe disease resulting from West Nile virus infection, officials said.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.