Industry News/Research
Relevant media editorial regarding vaccines, DNA vaccines, and Inovio
Inovio: A Rising Star in the World of Vaccines
eCliniqua
By Deborah Borfitz
September 2011
Excerpt:
“..., Inovio has 'come closest' to overcoming the major challenges of the DNA platform, says Plotkin. These include inducing antibodies as well as cellular immunity, achieving responses with reasonable amounts of DNA (preferably without a boost from another vaccine platform), demonstrating clinical efficacy, and delivering the DNA in a well tolerated way.”
Mutation of H5N1 virus could revive bird flu threat, says UN
Appearance of variant strain of virus in China and Vietnam appears to be resistant to existing vaccines.
Reuters
August 2011
Excerpt:
“The United Nations has warned of a possible resurgence of bird flu and said a mutant strain of the H5N1 virus is spreading in Asia and elsewhere.”
Dermal Electroporation: An Efficient and Tolerable Method of Delivering DNA Vaccines
This article describes the recent advances in dermal electroporation (ID ED) as an efficient platform for the delivery of DNA vaccines. In the future, dermal electroporation devices currently in development could offer an easy-to-use, tolerable, and low-cost strategy for mass immunizations with gene-based vaccines.
Transdermal
Kate Broderick
Stephen Kemmerrer
January 2011
DNA Drugs Come of Age
After years of false starts, a new generation of vaccines and
medicines for HIV, influenza and other stubborn illnesses is
now in clinical trials.
Scientific American
By Matthew P. Morrow and David B. Weiner
June 2010
Excerpt:
“The fact that several DNA vaccines and therapies
are already used in animals and are in large,
late-stage human trials involving hard-to-treat
ailments attests to how far the plasmid technology
has come. Dramatic progress in the field over
the past decade has brought some of the most creative
vaccines and therapeutics yet to clinical
testing for human benefit. In this regard, those of
us who have nursed this technology since its infancy
cannot help but feel proud to see that it has
emerged from a difficult childhood and can look
forward to a bright future.”
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Next Generation Vaccines: Antigen-Encoding DNA Delivered Via Electroporation
By overcoming delivery bottlenecks, electroporation enhances the safety and immunogenicity of DNA vaccines and helps usher in a new era of immunology.Drug Delivery
Michael P. Fons, PhD MBA
January 2009
Excerpts:
"The next generation of vaccines is being developed that can stimulate antibody and, more importantly, T-cell responses that will be useful not only to prevent infectious disease, but also to treat chronic infections and cancer. A key to enabling these new DNA-based vaccines is the delivery of the DNA into cells of the body using electroporation. The combination of novel DNA-based vaccines and efficient electroporation delivery devices potentially promises to move the field of vaccinology from a prophylactic regime to one with therapeutic benefit and to address a variety of diseases with unmet clinical needs."
"As DNA vaccines delivered using in vivo electroporation are now being actively developed in multiple clinical trials, it is anticipated that one or more of these novel vaccines will be commercialized. The ability to control and potentially eliminate chronic infectious disease agents and to treat cancer without the typical adverse side effects demonstrated by conventional chemotherapy should significantly alter the way physicians treat these diseases."
January 2009 issue with Inovio article
(pull down Contents in Drug Delivery toolbar; go to page 32)
On The Rise: Drug Delivery Companies You Should Know About
Drug Delivery
Cindy H. Dubin
January 2009
Excerpts:
“This second-annual exclusive report to Drug Delivery Technology magazine introduces you to the up-and-coming drug delivery companies that are focusing on increased safety and designing systems with patients in mind.”
“'The idea of this next generation of vaccines, which is to more broadly enhance and enable the body’s immune system to go beyond just prevention and actually treat cancers or infectious diseases, is driven by an extremely compelling opportunity to address very large unmet needs,’ [Dr. Dhillon] continues. ‘And just as the humanization of monoclonal antibodies finally broke the bottleneck that hindered the development of antibody therapeutics, such as Rituxan, we believe that Inovio’s electroporation DNA delivery technology is showing the potential to achieve a similarly important breakthrough for the development and commercialization of DNA vaccines.’ ”
January 2009 issue with Inovio article
(pull down Contents in Drug Delivery toolbar; go to page 36)
DNA vaccines: ready for prime time?
Nature Reviews Genetics
Kutzler MA, Weiner DB
October 2008
Abstract:
"Since the discovery, over a decade and a half ago, that genetically engineered DNA can be delivered in vaccine form and elicit an immune response, there has been much progress in understanding the basic biology of this platform. A large amount of data has been generated in preclinical model systems, and more sustained cellular responses and more consistent antibody responses are being observed in the clinic. Four DNA vaccine products have recently been approved, all in the area of veterinary medicine. These results suggest a productive future for this technology as more optimized constructs, better trial designs and improved platforms are being brought into the clinic."
Vaccine Pulse: With a new delivery technology, DNA-based vaccines may just get a shot in the arm
A&U: America's AIDS Magazine
Chael Needle
October 2008
Excerpts:
"While traditional vaccines have successfully used various versions of a virus to give the body a head start in recognizing an antigen and forming an immune response in the form of antibodies, a new generation of vaccine candidates is looking to tap the potential of antigen-coded DNA fragments to elicit immune responses against diseases for which vaccine development has stalled, such as cancers and chronic infectious diseases like HIV. DNA-based vaccines are thought to be less expensive to manufacture as well as more amenable to accelerated development than traditional vaccines, but it is their potential for increased clinical benefit due to the induction of cell-mediated immune responses and expanding the self-teaching power of the immune system that has captured the attention of the research community."
"Says Dr. Dhillon: 'In my opinion, based on the type of immune responses we have seen, it’s just a matter of tweaking the DNA and making sure that you have the right protein. Once you overcome the first hurdle — DNA delivery and induction of pathogen-specific antibody and T- cells — in my opinion eighty percent of the battle is won….' ”
See full article
Courtesy of A&U: America's AIDS Magazine http://www.aumag.org Ph # 518-426-9010
DNA Vaccines: Precision tools for activating effective immunity against cancer
Nature Reviews Cancer
Rice, J., Ottensmeier, C., and Stevenson, F.
February 2008
Excerpts:
DNA vaccination has suddenly become a favored strategy for inducing immunity. The molecular precision offered by gene-based vaccines, together with the facility to include additional genes to direct and amplify immunity, has always been attractive. However, the apparent failure to translate operational success in preclinical models to the clinic, for reasons that are now rather obvious, reduced initial enthusiasm. Recently, novel delivery systems, especially electroporation, have overcome this translation block.
...for clinical trials of vaccines against cancer, initial enthusiasm turned to frustration with an apparent failure to translate promising vaccine designs from preclinical models into human subjects. The problem lay with delivery of DNA, and might now be solved by EP (electroporation), which is a known way of increasing transfection in vitro and is now successfully applied in vivo.
We have focused on electroporation (EP), for which there is a clear path to the clinic... The outcome is a dramatic enhancement of humoral and cellular immune responses....EP appears to have surmounted the hurdle required to translate DNA vaccination into the clinic, and multiple trials are in progress in infectious diseases and cancer.
The ability to manipulate genes has transformed medical science, and it is tempting to use the same knowledge and technology to develop gene-based vaccination. This goal has united experts in cancer with those in infectious disease who share the task of activating immunity against difficult targets....
...However, for clinical trials of vaccines against cancer, initial enthusiasm turned to frustration with an apparent failure to translate promising vaccine design from preclinical models into human subjects. The problem lay with delivery of DNA, and might now be solved by EP, which is a known way of increasing transfection in vitro and is now successfully applied in vivo...
For full article please click: DNA Vaccines: Precision tools for activating effective immunity against cancer
CANCER VACCINES: A Century in the Making…Almost Here?
Biotechnology HealthcareKatherine Adams, Senior Editor
December 2007
“Cancer immunotherapeutics, including vaccines, may hit the market by the end of this decade. They promise longer survival and perhaps indefinite remission at a more favorable cost-benefit ratio than that of oncologics now in use. They also may fuel dramatic changes in how healthcare is delivered and financed.
Two streams of trend are coming together – one is the concept of personalized medicine, and the other is active immunotherapy, and we expect to see a significant clinical benefit as a consequence.”
Booster Shot
Forbes.com
Robert Langreth
November 2007
Excerpts:
"A new golden age of vaccine is at hand, promising inoculations against malaria, meningitis, and much more.
The resurgence couldn't have come too soon. Mayo Clinic vaccine research Gregory Poland counts more than a dozen new diseases that have emerged in the last few decades: HIV, Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, avian influenza. The vaccine boom, he says, 'is shaking up the market.'
The $13 billion global vaccine business will grow 18% a year to $30 billon in 2011, predicts Lehman Brothers, well above the 4.4% annual growth expected for the drug industry overall."
For full article please click: Booster Shot
Vaccines and Their Promise are Roaring Back
The New York Times
Pascal Zachary
August 23, 2007
Excerpts:
But in a stunning reversal, innovators today are chasing dozens of vaccines, stimulated by some recent high-profile successes. "People see vaccines as money makers," says Paul A. Offit, chief of the infectious diseases section at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of "Vaccinated," a new book on Hilleman's career.
"Vaccine makers ate tackling major public-health problems again," says Adel Mahmoud, a vaccine expert and a professor in the department of molecular biology at Princeton. "The size of the market is incredible, both in America and around the world." Dr. Mahmoud was previously president of Merck's vaccine unit.
To date the biggest winner on the revival is Merck, which in the first six months of 2007 posted revenue of nearly $2 billion from vaccines alone, more that the company's vaccine sales for all of 2006. As recently as 2005, Merck's vaccine sales totaled barely $1.1 billion and were essentially flat over the prior three years.
Across the industry, the research pipeline is bulging. Companies are spending billions trying to develop vaccines for various cancers, staph infections and malaria. "We are entering a new golden era of vaccinology," says Gregory A. Poland, a vaccine expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"There are waves of optimism in medical science that encourage investment," Mr. Galambos says. "We're in one of those waves now."
The allure of the silver bullet — of wiping out an entire class of related diseases with a single injection — remains a powerful symbol of technological advance. Fifty years ago, vaccine creators captivated the world's imagination. With the return of vaccine-making to the center of the pharmaceutical business, new sources of profit are emerging, and new heroes of innovation.
For full article please click: Vaccines and Their Promise Are Roaring Back