Finland’s FIT Biotech, IAVI partnering on research into a vaccine to prevent AIDS
June 24 2003, Press release
TAMPERE, Finland, and NEW YORK, 24 June 2003 - Finnish biotechnology company FIT Biotech Plc and the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) have entered into a public-private research partnership to evaluate FIT Biotech’s investigational vaccine to prevent AIDS. Scientists agree that a vaccine that prevents people who are uninfected with HIV from contracting AIDS is the best hope to end the epidemic.
The vaccine candidate, named GTUÒ-MultiHIV, was developed by FIT Biotech and will be tested in a human trial in Finland later this year. As the trial volunteers receive GTU-MultiHIV, samples of their blood will be delivered to IAVI to be independently analyzed for signs that the vaccine causes the immune system to make anti-HIV defenses. If GTU-MultiHIV performs well in these early trials, it will be able to progress to larger trials.
IAVI will conduct analyses of trial volunteers’ responses to GTU-MultiHIV at its central laboratory at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London. Here IAVI is also evaluating other research teams’ AIDS vaccine candidates, including one developed by IAVI and now being tested in small human trials in Kenya, Uganda and the UK. IAVI’s goal is for multiple AIDS vaccine candidates to be compared head to head, so that the best can be prioritized for further study.
"Each day 15,000 men, women and children become infected with HIV. The world cannot delay in discovering a preventive vaccine," said Seth Berkley, MD, President and CEO of IAVI. "Our best shot at success is to forge innovative partnerships across traditional boundaries, with the public and private sectors working closely together."
FIT Biotech, based in Tampere, Finland, expands the roster of European organizations partnering with IAVI to speed the discovery of an AIDS vaccine. These include private companies, universities and advocacy groups in the UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark and Spain. The governments of the Netherlands, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden provide financial support to IAVI, as do the governments of the United States and Canada.
"Partnership with IAVI allows FIT Biotech to accelerate the development of our novel GTU-MultiHIV vaccine candidate, and to expand our HIV research program. Furthermore, it provides us continuous high quality review of our product development achievements," said Pekka Sillanaukee, PhD, eMBA, CEO and President of FIT Biotech.
About FIT Biotech’s AIDS vaccine candidate
FIT Biotech’s GTU-MultiHIV AIDS vaccine candidate is constructed using the company’s Gene Transport Unit platform (GTU®), a proprietary genetic engineering technology. The vaccine contains selections of the genes of HIV. It does not contain whole HIV, and therefore it cannot cause HIV infection.
FIT Biotech and IAVI are partnering to evaluate GTU-MultiHIV as a preventive vaccine for people who are uninfected with HIV, to prevent them from contracting AIDS; human trials of GTU-MultiHIV as a preventive vaccine enroll volunteers who are HIV uninfected.
Separately, FIT Biotech is conducting human trials of GTU-MultiHIV in Finland as a therapeutic vaccine among people who are already infected with HIV, to augment or replace antiretroviral medicines.
About FIT Biotech
FIT Biotech Plc is an innovative medical biotechnology company engaged in the development and commercialization of its proprietary Gene Transport Unit (GTU®) technology and GTU product applications in DNA vaccination and immune therapy. The company’s other areas of expertise are artificial immunogen (multiepitope), recombinant protein and antibody technologies, and GMP class process development and production for DNA vaccines. In addition, the company has developed and launched diagnostic products for the detection of natural latex allergens. FIT Biotech was established in 1998 and is located in Tampere, Finland, with operations also in Tartu, Estonia.
About IAVI
IAVI is a nonprofit scientific organization whose mission is to speed the discovery of a preventive AIDS vaccine and assure that it will be globally accessible. IAVI’s major financial supporters include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Rockefeller, Sloan and Starr foundations; the World Bank; BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company); and eight national governments. IAVI is a Collaborating Center of UNAIDS.
Contacts
CEO & President Pekka Sillanaukee
FIT Biotech Oyj Plc.
Tel. +358 3 3138 7000
Fax. +358 3 3138 7050
Mobile +358 40 833 1313
pekka.sillanaukee@fitbiotech.com
Christopher Adasiewicz
IAVI
New York
+1 212 847 1049 or +1 917 435 9972
E-mail
