Genetic Immunity Presents Clinical Data on DermaVir Patch Immune Therapy at 15th Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic ...( Data Shows Excellent Safety Pr...),Health

Data Shows Excellent Safety Profile and Long Lasting Immunity

MCLEAN, Va., and BUDAPEST, Hungary, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Genetic Immunity, a US/Hungarian clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focusing on the development of its patented immunotherapeutic platform technology, announced clinical safety and immunogenicity data on its DermaVir Patch, a topically administered HIV immune therapy. The presentation, titled, "Single DermaVir Patch Treatment of HIV+ Individuals Induces Long Lasting, High Magnitude and Broad HIV-Specific T Cell Responses," was given at the 15th Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston, February 3-6, 2008.

Presently available antiretroviral drugs interfere with the viral life cycle, but because of their toxicity and resistance profiles are typically prescribed as late as possible in the disease progression. Recent findings with DermaVir Patch treatment suggest that this innovative medicine induces new HIV specific immune responses in HIV infected patients not achievable by antiretroviral drugs. Such an alternative treatment approach has the capability to address the needs of those HIV positive individuals who have not yet begun drug therapy as well as those who are currently on drug therapy.

Genetic Immunity studied nine HIV infected individuals on fully suppressive antiretroviral therapy who were treated a single time with either 0.1, 0.4 or 0.8 mg of multiple HIV antigens encoding plasmid DNA, the active substance in DermaVir Patch. The same antiretroviral drug regimen was continued during the one-year follow-up.

HIV-specific T cell Precursors with High Proliferative Capacity (PHPC) were quantified via an assay performed by Franco Lori, M.D. and his collaborators. The DermaVir Patch treatment resulted in significant induction of PHPC counts in all nine patients in the study. Importantly, these precursor T cell responses were long lasting, 10-100 fold increased PHP
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