Encouraging results from SEEK's FLU-v Phase II study

SEEK, a leading UK privately-owned drug-discovery group, today announced encouraging results following the successful completion of its Universal Flu Vaccine Phase II challenge study. The full data will be presented today at the Influenza Congress 2011 in Arlington, Virginia, USA.

FLU-v is the first of a new class of breakthrough T cell vaccines that are anticipated to be effective against the highly-mutagenic influenza virus. It has been developed to provide a single vaccination which is effective against all strains of influenza virus, including pandemic strains.

The trial was a challenge study whereby healthy volunteers are exposed to an attenuated (mild) strain of flu. Vaccinated subjects showed significantly lower symptom scores and viral titre levels compared with non-vaccinated subjects. In addition and most critically, blood cells from vaccinated subjects showed a cross-reactive immunity to a range of influenza viruses including both animal and human A and B strains. This demonstrates a significant breadth of response and thus the potential for a universal vaccine able to protect people against both annual flu and pandemic strains. Flu-v was well tolerated.

Gregory Stoloff, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "These data, coming so soon after the excellent Phase Ib/II HIV trial results obtained using the same technology platform, validates SEEK's approach and methodology used in selecting its vaccine components, and demonstrates that effective and well tolerated vaccines can be produced against highly-mutating viruses."

SEEK's unique vaccines technology overcomes the normal evasion mechanism that viruses employ to stop the immune system from generating sufficient memory to conserved regions of the virus proteins, a major stumbling block of vaccine development to date. The Company is able to identify those conserved regions (non-mutating parts) of highly-mutating viruses that are most likely to be binding and reactive and hence generate immune responses. It then creates vaccines by combining synthetically-produced polypeptides comprising the identified conserved regions.

SEEK's scientific approach is based upon a new insight into how the human immune system differentiates, at molecular-level, between "self" and "non-self" ("Immune Activation"). The Immune Activation theory was applied to the development of a vaccine-technology platform targeting highly-mutagenic viruses. The core technology underlying this platform is a proprietary algorithm that predicts the propensity of parts of proteins to bind to molecules on cells and react with immune cells, enabling SEEK to identify those conserved regions.

SEEK's Universal Flu vaccine could be available for use, subject to regulatory approval, in the next 3-5 years.

SOURCE SEEK

Comments

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
Post a new comment
Post

While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided.

Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles.

Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information.

Read the full Terms & Conditions.

You might also like...
New insights into how IFITM3 protein protects against severe flu