Anti-Aids patch offers hope

2006-08-04 08:46

Budapest - Patches have been used for years to help smokers kick the habit. Now a team of Hungarian and US researchers is looking to use the same technology to deliver a vaccine against HIV/Aids by as early as 2009.

Genetic Immunity, the company developing the vaccine, has just completed the first safety trials on humans in Budapest, clearing the way for more clinical trials on the actual efficiency of the vaccine.

"The first trial was carried out on nine people," the CEO of Genetic Immunity's Hungarian arm, Zsolt Lisziewicz, said. "The goal was to check the safety and toxicity of the vaccine. We didn't find any side effects."

The next step is to prove that the vaccine patch, named DermaVir, can work as well on humans as it did on monkeys.

Human trials in Sweden, the US and other European countries are set to begin in September, with results expected in 2008.

According to Lisziewicz, the vaccine operates by training the patient's immune system to suppress the HIV virus, as opposed to the traditional antiretroviral drugs' method of targeting the virus directly.

While the vaccine is not designed to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids or cure the disease completely, the researchers believe it could be used to prevent full-blown Aids ever developing.

Great results

Hungarian scientist Julianna Lisziewicz has been leading the vaccine development in the US since 1996, and the monkey trials seemed to show great results.

"The very first trial we did was with late-Aids monkeys that were expected to live for only two weeks," Lisziewicz said. "They survived for over a year."

However, he said that the animal trials showed that if the disease was caught early enough, the immune system could be trained to almost completely suppress the virus.

The clinical trial found that rhesus macaques infected with HIV who were treated with a combination of DermaVir and antiretroviral drugs saw their median viral load fall from 33 860 copies/ml to less than 200 copies/ml.

Average viral load of the monkeys with Aids that were treated with the same combination fell from over four million to less than 200.

Monkeys that did not receive DermoVir showed no drop in viral load.

The delivery system through a patch is also something that the company feels could be of major benefit due to its simple nature.

"With the patch you don't need to use needles, which can be dangerous garbage after use," Lisziewicz said.

The researchers believe that based on their preliminary data the treatment would consist of applying the patch to a patient's back for a two-hour period six times a year.

Despite the fact that the trials on the monkeys also used antiretroviral drugs, the researchers hope the patch could also eliminate the need to take a daily concoction of pills.

"Our realistic objective today is to treat people with HIV without (antiretroviral) drugs," said Lisziewicz. "If we give them DermaVir, they will probably never need drug treatment."

However, there is still a long way to go before anyone can get too excited, and outside observers remain guarded. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA