New data released on plague, strep vaccines.

2003 JUN 4 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- ID Biomedical has confirmed that nasal Proteosome-based vaccines protect against pneumonic Plague caused by lethal aerosol infection with virulent Plague bacteria in a mouse model of airborne dissemination. The company also released preliminary results from the first cohort of its phase II clinical trial of the StreptAvax vaccine.

In a series of experiments performed by the U.S. Army Medical and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) at Fort Detrick (Frederick, Maryland), in collaboration with ID Biomedical, mice nasally immunized with plague antigen formulated with the proteosome technology were completely protected against lethality (100%) even when the dose of Plague antigen was 10-fold lower than ever previously given nasally.

Mice were 100% protected when challenged at either early or later times after only two nasal immunizations of the Proteosome Plague vaccine. In marked contrast, none of the control mice given nasal solution without vaccine antigen survived (0%) the lethal aerosol challenge with virulent Plague bacteria.

High anti-Plague IgG antibodies in serum and high anti-Plague IgA levels in collected lung secretions were found at both early and late time points post-immunization with the nasal Proteosome-based Plague vaccine. These levels were 10-200 times the low levels of these antibodies detected when the Plague antigen was given nasally without the Proteosome-based technology.

These data were to be presented in part in Arlington, Virginia, by George Lowell, MD, chief scientific officer of ID Biomedical (Colonel, U.S. Army, retired), at the 6th Annual Conference on Vaccine Research, sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases in Washington, DC, by Jefferey Adamovicz, LTC U.S. Army, at the American Society for Microbiology 103rd General Meeting.

"These strong and protective serum IgG and lung IgA antibody results confirm the value of Proteosome-based adjuvants for nasal vaccines against bioterror agents, particularly since injected immunizations with the Plague antigen plus Alum (an FDA-approved adjuvant) did not elicit any detectable local IgA in collected lung fluids. It is important to note that the lung is the most important organ to protect against airborne biothreat attacks," stated Lowell.

"The potential for application of the Proteosome technology to develop novel, safe and highly effective nasal vaccines against multiple bioterror agents, including Pneumonic Plague, warrants serious consideration, especially given that other proteosome-based vaccines have been safely administered to several hundred people in human clinical trials," he said.