Vaccine Weekly articles from February 2002

Vaccine Weekly archives from February 2002

Eventual Viral Escape From Cytotoxic T Cells May Limit Vaccine Efficacy.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - HIV vaccines based on the induction of cytotoxic T cell responses may not provide long-term protection, researchers in the United States warn. "Potent...

Hepatitis C Vaccine Enhanced By GM-CSF Gene Therapy.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - A group studying hepatitis C virus DNA vaccines has found granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) gene therapy increases their effectiveness...

Monkey Dies In AIDS Vaccine Test.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- In a study that illustrates how cunning a foe AIDS is, a monkey that was given an experimental AIDS vaccine died after the virus changed just one of its genes. HIV, which causes AIDS, already is...

DNA Vaccine Expressing Human Papillomavirus Gene Invites Viral Immunity.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - An experimental vaccine containing genes for the human papillomavirus 16-L1 (HPV16-L1) protein has shown promising results for halting tumor growth and...

Adenovirus-Based Therapy Yields Positive Results In Dendritic Cells.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Recombinant adenovirus-based therapies may contain certain properties that make them advantageous for dendritic cell differentiation, researchers say. The...

Anthrax Shots Pose Pregnancy Danger.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- There is a new problem with the Pentagon's troubled program to protect military forces from the deadly anthrax virus - pregnant women have mistakenly been given anthrax vaccinations that can cause birth...

Duplicated Vaccine Efforts Waste Resources.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The race to be first to develop an AIDS vaccine could have dire consequences. In a recently published commentary, John P. Moore of Cornell University, New York, argued that the competitive mentality...

Early Recombinant Interleukin-12 Treatment May Provide Protection.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Early administration of recombinant interleukin-12 can protect macaques from the simian version of HIV, according to researchers in the United States. Dr....

Vaccine Maker Gets FDA Approval For Shipments, With Proviso.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The nation's sole maker of the anthrax vaccine says that it has met federal production requirements at its laboratory and is on the verge of resuming shipments to the Pentagon. BioPort Corp. said a...

Sandra Lehrman Joins Panacos Pharmaceuticals Board of Directors.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Panacos Pharmaceuticals has appointed Sandra Nusinoff Lehrman, MD, to its board of directors. Lehrman has more than 18 years of experience in senior executive management within the pharmaceutical and...

L.E.A.P.S. Technology Shows Protection In Animal Model.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dr. Daniel Zimmerman, CEL-SCI Corporation presented evidence at the SMi "Anti-Inflammatory Therapeutics" Conference in London, U.K., that administration of a proprietary peptide based on CEL-SCI's...

Frost & Sullivan Hold Analyst Briefing.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Frost & Sullivan held a conference call on January 29, 2002, to provide manufacturers, end-users and other industry participants an overview, summary, challenges, and the latest coverage on...

Needle-Free Injection System To Be Evaluated In Study.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Bioject Medical Technologies, Inc., announced that it has signed an agreement with the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York to study the enhanced efficacy for the Biojector 2000 (B-2000)...

MedImmune Acquires Aviron Shares in Exchange Offer.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- MedImmune, Inc., (MEDI) has accepted for exchange all Aviron (AVIR) shares which were validly tendered in its offer to exchange 1.075 MedImmune shares for each Aviron share. The exchange offer...

Genzyme Molecular Oncology Receives Patent Relating To SPHERE Technology.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Genzyme Molecular Oncology announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 6,338,945 ('945) relating to its high throughput screening technology known as SPHERE. The method described in the patent...

Epimmune and Genencor Achieve Preclinical Milestone.(Brief Article)
February 6, 2002... 2002 FEB 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Genencor International, Inc., and Epimmune, Inc., have identified an EpiGene clinical product candidate for the lead program in their collaboration, a therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine. Epimmune received...

Library Vaccine Shows Promise.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - An HIV "library" vaccine has produced promising results in a murine model, researchers in the United States report. "HIV-1 is a fundamentally difficult...

Prostate Specific Antigen Epitope Raises Hopes For Cancer Vaccine.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - A group at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has created an agonist epitope for prostate specific antigen, raising hopes that a vaccine for prostate...

ELISPOT Testing Can Help Determine Cellular Response.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) testing can be used to measure the effectiveness of HIV and other vaccines, researchers in the United States report. ...

Hepatitis A And B Vaccine Combo Protects When Accelerated Schedule Needed.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - People traveling at the last minute to areas where hepatitis A and B virus (HAV, HBV) infection rates are high can be protected from infection by receiving a...

Initial Clinical Study Shows Safety And Bioactivity Of Vaccine.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A new Phase I clinical trial of a prostate cancer vaccine developed at Duke University Medical Center has shown that the vaccine made from the patient's own dendritic cells causes no adverse side...

Flu Shot May Offer Protection.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The flu vaccine may offer significant protection against stroke, especially for people age 75 or younger, researchers in France report in the February 2002 issue of the journal Stroke. This is the...

Vical's Naked DNA Technology Used To Deliver HIV Vaccine.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A new study published in Nature describes the use of the Vical, Inc., (VICL) "naked DNA" technology in the ongoing efforts to develop a vaccine to combat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The...

Crucell Names VP Development, Regulatory Affairs.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dutch antibody and vaccine company Crucell (CRXL) announced it has appointed Stef Heylen as its vice president of Development and Regulatory Affairs as of March 1, 2002. Prior to joining Crucell,...

Lexigen Signs On As 19th PER.C6 Licensee.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dutch antibody and vaccine company Crucell (CRXL) has granted Boston-based Lexigen Pharmaceuticals Corp. a nonexclusive license for its proprietary human cell system PER.C6. Under the terms of the...

Avanir Signs R&D Agreement With Chinese Pharmaceutical Company.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AVN) announced the signing of a collaborative research and development agreement with Shanghai New Asiatic Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a division of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Co.,...

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Awards 3-Year Grant to AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant of $600,000 over 3 years to the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC). Founded in 1995, AVAC is a consumer-based advocacy organization...

Bush Proposes Major Raise for NIH, Including $1.5 Billion In Bioterror Research.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- U.S. President George W. Bush is proposing the largest raise ever for the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) - a $3.7 billion increase, almost half of which will go to bioterrorism research. ...

ACLARA Announces eTag Proteomics Collaboration.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- ACLARA BioSciences (ACLA) is collaborating with P.J. Utz, assistant professor of medicine, and William Robinson, both at the Stanford University School of Medicine, to apply ACLARA's eTag technology...

Transgene Initiates Two Phase II Trials In Breast, Lung Cancer.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Transgene (TRGNY, TRANSGENE) has initiated two Phase II clinical trials of its immunotherapeutic MVA-Muc1-IL2 vaccine candidate, one for the treatment of lung cancer, the second for the treatment of...

American Biogenetic Sciences Secures Agreements for Smallpox, Anthrax Vaccines In Russian Federation.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- American Biogenetic Sciences, Inc., (ABS, MABA) has executed two new 10-year agreements with Russian entities, granting ABS exclusive rights to distribute in specified markets certain vaccines to be...

Employers' Group Launches FluSTAR System.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The Employers' Managed Health Care Association has launched a new service to help employees understand, identify, and seek treatment for the flu - the FluSTAR System for tracking and reporting the flu....

Cell-Matrix Acquisition Completed.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- CancerVax Corp. has completed its acquisition of Cell-Matrix, Inc., a privately held, development stage biotechnology company with intellectual property, technology, and product candidates in the field...

Cambridge Antibody, Drug Royalty Announce C$126M Takeover Bid.(Brief Article)
February 13, 2002... 2002 FEB 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT, CATG) a U.K.-based developer of human monoclonal antibodies as novel therapeutics and Drug Royalty Corp. (DRI), a Canada-based company whose assets primarily consist...

Cytokine Immunizations Work Better When Local Tumor Irradiation Included.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Cell factor vaccines that can prevent the growth of gliomas work better when the tumors are also treated with local radiotherapy, medical researchers in...

Vaccine Combination Rejects Brain Tumor Establishment In Rodents.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Using a combination of cytokine-based gene therapy and tumor cell vaccination, medical investigators have been able to produce immunity against brain tumors in...

Controversial Oral Vaccine Said To Induce Immune Response.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Researchers in Thailand say that a controversial vaccine can reduce viral populations and raise immune cell counts in HIV patients. Vichai Jirathitikal...

DNA Arrays Give Clues For Better Vaccines.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- New clues about the way immune cells communicate with invading pathogens may lead to better vaccines, according to a report in the February 5, 2002, issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of...

Pneumococcal Surface Adhesin Shows Promise.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Researchers in the United States say that a pneumcoccal protein can induce potent antibacterial immune responses. "Pneumococcal surface adhesin A (PsaA), a...

Viral Library May Aid Vaccine Development.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Researchers in Japan and Thailand have developed an HIV viral library to facilitate the search for antiviral vaccines. "A major hindrance in HIV vaccine...

Dosage Appears To Be A Critical Factor In Cocaine Vaccine.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dosage appears to be a critical factor in the effectiveness of a cocaine vaccine being tested by Yale researchers that is designed to block the euphoria drug abusers experience. Of eight patients...

Interleukin-4 Makes End-Run Around Autoaggression After DNA Immunization.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Giving prophylactic doses of interleukin (IL)-4 may be one way to avoid overly active immune system responses sometimes observed following DNA immunizations...

Phase II Clinical Trials Initiated With Immunotherapeutic For Lung and Breast Cancers.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Transgene (TRGNY; TRANSGENE) announced the initiation of two Phase II clinical trials of its immunotherapeutic MVA-Muc1-IL2 vaccine candidate: one for the treatment of lung cancer, the second for the...

Agreement Entered For Manufacturing Monoclonal Antibodies On Human Cell Line.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Dutch antibody and vaccine company Crucell (CRXL) and Belgian biotechnology company Innogenetics (INNX) have entered into a nonexclusive license agreement for the manufacturing of monoclonal antibody...

Data Management Application Chosen For New Immunization Registry.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Leap of Faith Technologies, Inc., and Intelligent Medical Objects, Inc., (IMO) have completed development and testing of an advanced Immunization Registry that is now available for deployment...

Report Evaluates Emerging Therapies.(Brief Article)
February 20, 2002... 2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Decision Resources, Inc., announces the publication of "Pancreatic Cancer," a new study that evaluates the current status of, and future prospects for, therapies to treat this highly virulent cancer....