AlphaVax Announces Clinical Trials For Influenza And CMV

AlphaVax has been given approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin clinical trials evaluating vaccines for influenza and cytomegalovirus (CMV) developed with the company's alphavaccine technology.

"These trials will expand on our previous clinical experience with an HIV vaccine to two additional indications, influenza and CMV," said Jeff Chulay, M.D., AlphaVax's Chief Medical Officer. "Advancing three vaccines for three different indications into the clinic validates the original design of our platform technology, which can be used against many different diseases."

The CMV alphavaccine, which contains three gene targets from CMV, will first be tested in healthy volunteers before being testing in target populations such as solid organ transplant recipients. Enrollment of subjects will begin in February 2007.

The company is also initiating the first of several clinical trials evaluating alphavaccines for influenza. The first alphavaccine for influenza contains the hemagglutinin gene from a single strain of influenza. Enrollment of subjects will begin in April 2007. Subsequent trials will test additional vaccine candidates for seasonal as well as potentially pandemic strains of influenza.
These projects were funded in part by grants AI62632 and AI060060 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.

About AlphaVax

AlphaVax, Inc is a North Carolina-based, clinical-stage company focused on developing new vaccine products for infectious diseases, biodefense and cancer.

AlphaVax uses a novel alphavirus vector platform technology that has proven to be highly flexible and immunogenic, and allows the same manufacturing process and formulation strategies to be applied to many different products. The company began operations in 1997 and has attracted more than $80 million in corporate partner and grant funding, which it has used to leverage its development progress and to build a broad product pipeline.

In addition to partnered programs, important alphavaccine disease targets include influenza, cytomegalovirus, cancer and HIV and, as well as a number of biodefense vaccine products. The AlphaVax headquarters and R&D facility is located in Research Triangle Park, NC, and its GMP manufacturing facility is located in Lenoir, NC. The company employs 77 staff with expertise spanning vaccine design, process development, GMP manufacturing, quality assurance, and regulatory and clinical affairs.

AlphaVax, Inc.
http://www.alphavax.com