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Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Research News & Studies => Topic started by: J.R.E. on February 22, 2009, 07:11:35 pm

Title: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: J.R.E. on February 22, 2009, 07:11:35 pm
GeoVax Starts Injections For Phase 2a Human HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial In USA
Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Clinical Trials / Drug Trials;  Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Article Date: 21 Feb 2009 - 1:00 PST

 
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GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX), an Atlanta-based, publicly traded biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, announced the first injections in its Phase 2a Human Clinical Vaccine Trial for its candidate HIV/AIDS vaccine. The trial, designated HVTN 205, is being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). The HVTN, funded and supported by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is the largest worldwide clinical trials network dedicated to the development and testing of HIV/AIDS vaccines. The HVTN has sponsored over 80 Phase 1 trials for the initial evaluation of safety and immunogenicity of candidate HIV/AIDS vaccines. The results of these trials have merited only five phase 2a trials since 1992. Progressing to Phase 2 is a significant step for GeoVax. The Company is pleased to report that the first injections for the Phase 2a trial were conducted at the HVTN network sites at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and Vanderbilt University, Nashville.

The trial will include a total of 225 volunteers (150 vaccine recipients and 75 placebo recipients) and take place at 13 HVTN sites: 11 in North America and 2 in South America. Sites in the United States include Emory University, Atlanta; Harvard Medical School, Boston; Vanderbilt University, Nashville; University of Rochester; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; the San Francisco Department of Public Health; University of Alabama, Birmingham and sites at Columbia University, Union Square, and the Bronx in New York City. In South America, participants are to be enrolled in Peru at sites in Iquitos and Miraflores (Lima).

"I am extremely pleased that our vaccine merited moving forward through the HVTN," said Harriet Robinson, Ph.D., developer of the vaccine and Senior V.P. of Research and Development at GeoVax. "This network provides a wide array of support for its clinical trials, from finances to statistical design and analysis; from community engagement to rigorous laboratory analysis. Working with the HVTN also affords us the input of the NIAID Prevention Science Research Committee, a committee with breadth of experience and knowledge in human vaccine development."

GeoVax's unique two component vaccine, a recombinant DNA and a recombinant modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), is designed to stimulate both anti-HIV T cell and anti-HIV antibody immune responses. Stimulation of both T cells and antibodies differentiates the GeoVax vaccine from many other vaccine candidates. GeoVax's DNA and MVA vaccines are used in a prime-boost protocol in which priming is done with the DNA and boosting with the MVA. Both the DNA and MVA express the three major proteins of the AIDS virus: Gag, Pol, and Env, and produce non-infectious virus-like-particles. These particles contain proteins that mimic more than half of the components of the AIDS virus, but cannot cause AIDS. This multi-protein approach is designed to elicit a broad multi-target protective T cell response. The Env protein is designed to elicit a protective Ab response against the natural form of the virus envelope glycoprotein as well as protective T cells.

Dr. Paul Goepfert, principal Investigator of HVTN 205 and director of the University of Alabama trial site, said, "The road to an effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection is long and winding. It is vital to continue testing promising products. I am very pleased to aid in the further development of this important product in a phase 2 trial."

"For nearly 30 years since HIV/AIDS' discovery, researchers have been searching for a vaccine to combat its scourge," said Robert McNally, Ph.D., CEO and President of GeoVax Labs Inc. "Our Phase 1 trials found GeoVax's vaccines to be safe and immunogenic in humans. Good results from the Phase 2a human trial will build upon this foundation of safety and immunogenicity to support a Phase 2b efficacy trial."

In addition to the preventative vaccine entering Phase 2a, GeoVax also is working towards initiating human clinical trials testing its vaccines as potential therapies for people who are already infected with HIV. The goal of the therapeutic vaccination is to reduce the need of infected people for anti- viral drugs. Initial therapeutic trials will vaccinate infected people who are already on drugs to test the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine in infected people. Therapeutic trials of a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) prototype of the GeoVax HIV vaccine in SIV infected primate animal models have held high promise that the GeoVax vaccine will be able to contribute to the control of HIV-1 in infected humans.

About GeoVax Labs, Inc.

GeoVax Labs, Inc. is a biotechnology company, established to develop, manufacture, license and commercialize human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents. GeoVax's AIDS vaccine technology is the subject of 20 issued or filed patent applications. GeoVax AIDS vaccines are designed for use in uninfected people to prevent Acquired Immunodeficiency Disease (AIDS), caused by the virus known as HIV-1, should the person ever become infected. GeoVax AIDS vaccines also may be effective as therapeutics, treatment of people already infected with AIDS virus.

GeoVax's core AIDS vaccine technologies were developed by Dr. Harriet Robinson, Senior V.P. of Research and Development, through a collaboration of colleagues at Emory University's Vaccine Center, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and GeoVax.

GeoVax AIDS vaccines have moved forward in human clinical trials conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) based in Seattle, Washington. The HVTN, funded through a cooperative agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is the largest worldwide clinical trials program dedicated to the development and testing of AIDS vaccines. Preclinical work enabling evaluation of GeoVax DNA and MVA vaccines was funded and supported by NIAID, which provided additional support to GeoVax AIDS vaccine development program with a $15 million IPCAVD grant awarded in late 2007.

Safe Harbor Statement: All statements in this news release, not statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on expectations and assumptions on the date of this press release and are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, whether: GeoVax can develop and manufacture these vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax's vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax's vaccines will effectively prevent AIDS in humans, vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete vaccine development, there is development of competitive products that may be more effective or easier to use than GeoVax's products, and other factors over which GeoVax has no control. GeoVax assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, and does not intend to do so. Certain matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements involving certain risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, risks detailed in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports.

GeoVax Labs, Inc.
http://www.geovax.com

Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: hahaha on February 27, 2009, 01:05:23 am
GeoVax Starts Injections For Phase 2a Human HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial In USA
In addition to the preventative vaccine entering Phase 2a, GeoVax also is working towards initiating human clinical trials testing its vaccines as potential therapies for people who are already infected with HIV. The goal of the therapeutic vaccination is to reduce the need of infected people for anti- viral drugs. Initial therapeutic trials will vaccinate infected people who are already on drugs to test the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine in infected people. Therapeutic trials of a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) prototype of the GeoVax HIV vaccine in SIV infected primate animal models have held high promise that the GeoVax vaccine will be able to contribute to the control of HIV-1 in infected humans.

Does anybody here had any idea that when will the therapeutic clinical trial take place?
Sometimes I feel confused, therapeutic trial shall be much easy to get conclusion then preventive trial.  (Viral load remain constant or lower, no ART further need for a period of time).   Why don't GeoVax do the therapeutic clinical parallel with the preventive one? Is there any further concern?   
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on March 02, 2009, 03:58:22 pm
I've been following Geovax for a while (also bought a little stock, so if it works i'll get cured and make a few $, lol).  There has been very little info about therapeutic trials, and everything seems to be running about a year behind, but I'm thrilled they have finally started the phase II preventatives.  I think part of the delay has been an attempt to improve delivery and production, which they are now partnering with a french company to help achieve. Not to mention funding.

The article below is the only recent one I've seen that mentions therapeutic trials to be started in 2009.  Let's hope...

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/090211/cg69290.html?.v=1 (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/090211/cg69290.html?.v=1)

GeoVax Update Provided at the BIO CEO & Investor Conference 2009
Wednesday February 11, 8:00 am ET


ATLANTA, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX - News), an Atlanta-based, publicly traded biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, today announced that Robert McNally, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and President, presented a corporate update at the Eleventh Annual BIO CEO & Investor Conference 2009, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, in New York.

Dr. McNally presented a corporate overview of GeoVax and its DNA/MVA vaccine technology, showcasing the scientific rationale and encouraging data from the Company's completed studies and trials. Among the points discussed by Dr. McNally were:

* World class science and collaboration with leading institutions. Dr. McNally informed the audience of unique scientific collaboration between Emory University, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which led to the formation of GeoVax and the exclusive license of technology developed at these institutions.
    * Large market opportunity. Dr. McNally presented information on the very attractive market opportunity available for a successful HIV/AIDS vaccine. GeoVax's unique vaccine with its potential use in both preventative and therapeutic applications holds promise for not only addressing an unmet medical need, but also for commercial success.
    * Intellectual property. Dr. McNally briefly reviewed GeoVax's patent portfolio, consisting of over 20 issued and pending patents covering the Company's vaccine technology and manufacturing methods.
    * Status of Phase 2a preventative clinical trial. Dr. McNally discussed the current status of the Company's Phase 2a preventative human vaccine trial. He noted that clinical sites had been activated and prospective subjects are being identified.
  * Planned therapeutic clinical trials. Dr. McNally briefly discussed the company's plans for moving into therapeutic human vaccine trials in 2009 - for treatment of people already infected with the HIV-1 virus.
    * Selection of DNA vaccine component. The Company has recently reviewed results from its preclinical studies; comparing the performance of its two DNA vaccine candidates - JS2 and JS7 - and has determined that the JS7 DNA vaccine (currently being distributed for the Company's Phase 2a trial) provides the best opportunity for success. Dr. McNally stated that the final selection of JS7 will accelerate the company's moving forward with the therapeutic clinical trials process.
    * Efficient MVA manufacturing process. Dr. McNally reviewed the Company's current process for making the MVA portion of its vaccine through chicken embryos, and discussed GeoVax's ongoing collaboration with Vivalis, S.A. to develop a duck embryonic stem cell platform which can support large scale bioreactor production to meet future commercial demand.
    * Governmental support. Dr. McNally noted that GeoVax is supported in two significant ways through the federal government. GeoVax's Phase 1 human clinical trials, as well as the current Phase 2a trial are conducted and paid for by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), which is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of the NIH. GeoVax is also the direct recipient (in October 2007) of a 5-year, $15 million grant by the NIH in support of its HIV/AIDS vaccine development efforts.
    * Financial strength. In addition to the financial and resource support provided by HVTN and NIH, Dr. McNally also talked about the $10 million financing facility currently in place through a common stock purchase agreement with Fusion Capital. He noted that this facility provides the Company with financial security and flexibility to meet its short-term operational and clinical objectives, but that additional financing would be necessary to progress into the later stages of clinical development.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: moskimo on April 06, 2009, 04:12:21 pm
can somebody bring these clinical tests and trials to south africa that is where the pendamic is raging
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Alefou on April 07, 2009, 07:56:44 am
This is a very good news. I'm just scared of one thing... Of course a preventive vaccine would be huge ! and it would allowed us to have normal relationship with people which will be not scared of us anymore. But ! Imagine that a preventive vaccine is found before the therapeutic one... I'm scared that all the research on AIDS will go down and that they will not care of people infected (they will just wait that we die so that AIDS is removed from the planet .... )
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on July 14, 2009, 01:38:04 pm
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/vaccines/article/RobinsonHV5-7.pdf

Portrait of a leading vaccinologist
Working Towards an HIV/AIDS Vaccine
Harriet L. Robinson

The author writes about her journey towards creating an HIV/AIDS vaccine with preventative and therapeutic potential in the July 1-4 issue of Landes Bioscience. 
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on July 14, 2009, 03:22:20 pm
Thanks for that link Cosmicdancer, it was very informative. For those who aren't going to read it all and want a summary of the therapeutic aspect (it underscores the importance of getting on treatment before there is too much damage to the immune system):

At the same time, based on highly promising preclinical results in infected non-human primates,
GeoVax is working to test the ability of the vaccine to serve as a therapy for already infected people. This therapeutic application will vaccinate people who were placed on drugs within a year of infection
to test if the vaccine response can supplant the need for continued drug treatment. If we are successful in this setting, GeoVax will test its therapeutic application in people with longer term infections to
see if vaccination can supplant the need for drugs in persons who have undergone more immune system damage.

So, do I believe an HIV/AIDS vaccine is possible? The answer is a resounding “yes”. In the absence of a vaccine, the typical unvaccinated person who becomes HIV infected successfully controls the
infection for about 10 years. What a vaccine needs to do is to tip this time of control to 40, 50, 60 years. The GeoVax vaccine, which elicits both protective Ab and protective T cells, can tip the time of control in non-human primates. I firmly believe the same will be true in humans.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Matts on July 14, 2009, 06:12:50 pm
Thank You Cosmicdancer for this interesting link, and thanks to Inchlingblue for the summary.
Hopefully we will hear some great News from Harriet L. Robinson's GeoVax and their trials in some years.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: xman on August 09, 2009, 01:55:37 pm
Issues Surrounding Ending of HIV Vaccine Trial Agreement in Chicago Examined

August 7, 2009

Officials from the Chicago-based Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, "the  largest outpatient infectious disease clinic in the Midwest " has decided against participating in an HIV vaccine trial being conducted by Atlanta-based GeoVax Labs, "citing concerns for patients and finances," the Chicago Free Press reports (Wooten, 8/6). According to MyFoxChicago.com, "The preliminary proposal, obtained exclusively by Fox Chicago, called for a small trial to take place at CORE later this year on Geovax's therapeutic vaccine, with possible future tests of the preventative vaccine there." Following the original proposal, the board of CORE Foundation -- "the public/private fundraising arm" of the CORE Center -- "terminated its agreement with Geovax to start discussions on vaccine trials." Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, who along with other government officials signed the original agreement for the trial to move forward, "suspects it's politics and not medicine that torpedoed Geovax at CORE," MyFoxChicago.com reports (Goldblatt, 8/5). "Regardless of the reasons, Stroger's camp said that they will continue to fight to hold the vaccine trials in Cook County," the Free Press reports (8/6).

http://www.thebody.com/content/art53152.html
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on August 28, 2009, 11:08:00 am
Quote
Cook County Board President Todd Stroger, who along with other government officials signed the original agreement for the trial to move forward, "suspects it's politics and not medicine that torpedoed Geovax at CORE

I haven't been able to find any more info about this statement, other than smoothing-over platitudes released from Geovax.  Anyone know anything else about this or what these 'politics' are or where they came from?  I would hate to see this shot in the foot.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on August 28, 2009, 11:49:48 am
I haven't been able to find any more info about this statement, other than smoothing-over platitudes released from Geovax.  Anyone know anything else about this or what these 'politics' are or where they came from?  I would hate to see this shot in the foot.

I don't think the issues with CORE will affect progress on this, it sounds like a minor glitch. It looks like they will be giving an update when they present a company overview on September 10:

GeoVax to Present at the Rodman & Renshaw 11th Annual Healthcare Conference

ATLANTA, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCBulletinBoard: GOVX) (the "Company"), an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, today announced that Robert McNally, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, will present a company overview at the Rodman & Renshaw 11th Annual Healthcare Conference on Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 4:30 p.m. ET at the New York Palace Hotel in New York.

To access the live webcast of the presentation, please visit the GeoVax website at http://www.geovax.com, or http://www.wsw.com/webcast/rrshq15/govx.ob. Please connect to the website at least 15 minutes prior to the presentation to allow for any necessary software downloads. An archived replay will be available on the Company's site for 90 days following the live presentation.

Dr. McNally will present an overview of GeoVax's vaccine technology and will report the latest progress on the Company's Phase 2a preventative human vaccine trial and plans for its upcoming therapeutic human vaccine trials. Management also plans to meet one-on-one with current and prospective GeoVax investors, analysts and other potential Company partners.

Continued...

LINK:

http://sev.prnewswire.com/health-care-hospitals/20090826/CG6643926082009-1.html

As an aside: Geovax was chosen as a "standout stock" by TradingMarkets.com:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2499830/

Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on September 10, 2009, 06:21:37 pm
Quote
GeoVax to Present at the Rodman & Renshaw 11th Annual Healthcare Conference

I haven't been able to get the video presentation to load on my browser for some reason, but there is a slide show on the site (same link as in Inching's post) that I presume is a summary of what they said.  It doesn't appear to have any new info, except an assertion that therapeutic trials are set to begin first Q 2010 and that early results from the IIa preventative are promising - but no details on what that means.  Anyone else get it to work and hopefully found out something new?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: hahaha on September 11, 2009, 01:33:34 am
Do we have any chances to use "political" influence to force GeoVax start therapeutic trial earlier?

It seems to me that the result of "therapeutic" is easy to observe, yet none of the company would like to start it earlier than preventive ones, I wonder why...... :'(
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: sensual1973 on September 11, 2009, 02:02:51 am
because they have a huge stock of HAART they need to sell first  ;)
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: georgep77 on September 11, 2009, 09:02:40 am
because they have a huge stock of HAART they need to sell first  ;)
Lol ..sensual that's totally true !!
                                  :D
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on September 11, 2009, 02:59:57 pm
It's true that results from therapeutic trials should certainly be visible much earlier, but frankly Q1 2010 isn't that far off, so if they really do start then, we can't complain too much (although I'm sure we still will!).

I also think they are still being a little vague about expectations for the preventative trial since I don't think anyone seriously believes it will actually prevent infection, just suppress it when it does happen.  But then again, when it comes to HIV vaccines, anything is possible.    It would be good to have SOME kind of preliminary results since they supposedly started injecting around February, which is 8 months ago....
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: marius68 on September 21, 2009, 12:46:28 pm
Geovax is moving!!!!

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS110663+21-Sep-2009+PRN20090921

I agree with Dr. McNally statement: "(...) current costs for oral medications and the
numerous side effects of these drugs give further urgency to the need for a
therapeutic vaccine (...)"


Protocol Submitted for Phase 1 Therapeutic HIV/AIDS Vaccine Trial

ATLANTA, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin
Board: GOVX) (the "Company"), an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical company
developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency
Virus) and other infectious agents, today announced that it has requested a
pre-Investigational New Drug (IND) meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to discuss a proposed IND for GeoVax's therapeutic
vaccine as a treatment for individuals infected with HIV/AIDS.

HIV affects the entire globe and comes in a variety of subtypes.  Clade B is
the predominant subtype in North America, where there are roughly 60,000 new
infections each year.  Globally, there are about 2.5 million AIDS infections
per year, most primarily involving subtypes AG, B, and C.  In 2007, UNAIDS
reported 1.3 million people living with AIDS in North America and 33.2 million
people living with AIDS worldwide.

"This pre-IND meeting with the FDA is a significant step toward meeting the
needs of those individuals currently infected with HIV/AIDS.  The FDA has 60
days from our submission to review our proposal and respond with questions or
comments," stated Robert McNally, Ph.D., president and chief executive
officer.  "The need for a HIV/AIDS vaccine is clear, based on the continued
increase of new infections in the United States, despite years of education
and preventative measures.  Current costs for oral medications and the
numerous side effects of these drugs give further urgency to the need for a
therapeutic vaccine," noted Dr. McNally.

A new IND with the FDA is required since this will be the first time the
GeoVax vaccine will be used for a therapeutic application.  The Phase 1
therapeutic protocol stresses safety parameters to minimize any risk to the
volunteers.  The protocol, conceived with collaboration from ARCA (AIDS
Research Consortium of Atlanta), has specific objectives to optimize safety
while evaluating the ability for the vaccine to elicit protective immune
responses in vaccinated participants.  The proposed trial is based on the
achievement of excellent post vaccine viral control in animal trials conducted
in recently infected non-human primates at the Yerkes National Primate
Research Center, affiliated with Emory University.  The proposed human trial
follows the precedents set in the preclinical animal trials and is a critical
step towards developing a therapeutic vaccine for HIV-1 infected humans.

Submission of a request to the FDA for a pre-IND meeting is the first step in
a process that is expected to take a number of months to complete.
Commencement of the trial is targeted for the first quarter of 2010.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on September 21, 2009, 02:04:31 pm

Glad to see Geovax going for the therapeutic trials, if nothing else at least this vaccine could be strong enough to give us all a break from meds. A preventative vaccins is a tough nut to break due to the immense viral build-up in the first 7-10 days of infection. Any immune response must be pretty powerful to mount a strong enough attack to stop the virus from establishing itself in the body. Think of the Flu vaccine ----- it takes 2 to 4 weeks for enough antibodies to be made to neutralise the flu. The flu is like a gentle breeze compared to the hurricane force of hiv in establishing itself in the body. Add to the aforementioned that HIV has the ability to hjde from the immune system, you have a formidable enemy.

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: sensual1973 on September 21, 2009, 02:28:48 pm
ZZZZZzzzzzzzz
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: hahaha on September 21, 2009, 09:54:35 pm
3 years ago when I was infected --> I hope there is a cure.
2 years ago when I took HARRT for 10 month--> I hope there is "functional cure"
1 years ago when my face sunk --> I hope something that can stop me from taking the drug for 5 year
and this year, right now--> I hope there is something that can give me a 6 month break from drug....

I hope, really, I hope, Geovax can go well for us.........
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on November 17, 2009, 10:24:41 am
Here is an update on the progress for the therapeutic trial. They're looking at starting early 2010 if all goes as planned:

FDA Grants GeoVax Labs, Inc. Request For Pre-IND Meeting

ATLANTA, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX) (the "Company"), an Atlanta-based, biopharmaceutical company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV-1 (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and other infectious agents, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted its request for a pre-IND meeting to discuss the proposed Investigational New Drug (IND) application for GeoVax's therapeutic vaccine as a treatment for individuals already infected with HIV. The meeting will only take place if the Company is not satisfied or requires some clarification to the FDA's answers to the questions submitted in the pre-IND package. Following the FDA response to the Pre-IND meeting questions, GeoVax will prepare and submit to the FDA an IND application for the therapeutic trial.

Robert McNally, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, stated, "In anticipation of a pre-IND meeting in mid December, we have submitted a pre-IND information packet to the FDA. This packet includes rationale and supporting data for each question in the pre-IND package to allow a response from the FDA. The main purpose of the Pre-IND meeting is to ensure the FDA understands the purpose, approach and endpoints for the anticipated Phase 1 therapeutic trial and that we have answers to all of our questions to the FDA prior to filing the actual IND.

A new IND with the FDA is required since this will be the first time the GeoVax vaccine will be used for a therapeutic application. The Phase 1 therapeutic protocol stresses safety parameters to minimize any risk to the volunteers. The protocol, conceived with collaboration from ARCA (AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta), has specific objectives to optimize safety while evaluating the ability for the vaccine to elicit protective immune responses in vaccinated participants. The proposed trial is based on the achievement of excellent post-vaccine viral control in animal trials conducted in recently infected non-human primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, affiliated with Emory University. The proposed human trial follows the precedents set in the preclinical animal trials and is a critical step towards developing a therapeutic vaccine for HIV-1 infected humans.

The IND process is expected to take a number of months to complete. Based on the Company's current progress, commencement of the trial is targeted for early 2010.

Continued . . .

LINK:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fda-grants-geovax-labs-inc-request-for-pre-ind-meeting-70271007.html
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: xman on November 24, 2009, 01:07:37 pm
I was reading that an effective preventive vaccine should also work in persons already infected, decreasing virus replication or stopping it definetely. If this is correct why Geovax is beginning trials for a therapeutic vaccine?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on November 24, 2009, 01:53:02 pm
I was reading that an effective preventive vaccine should also work in persons already infected, decreasing virus replication or stopping it definetely. If this is correct why Geovax is beginning trials for a therapeutic vaccine?

Yes, it is possible that an effective preventive vaccine could possibly work as a therapeutic but it is not definite, there are many variables involved.

One of the surprises of the Thai vaccine was that it had no effect at all on the viral load or CD4 count of those people who did get HIV, something that really surprised researchers.

Do you have a link to what you were reading?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on November 25, 2009, 06:23:32 am

Some info on vaccine research:

http://hivresourcetracking.org/treatments/vaccines

xman is correct. I believe the difficulty in getting to both a preventative and therapeutic  vaccine is attaching to the non-mutatable targets on the virus (among other things) due to their location on the virus. I believe we discussed this on another thread.

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on November 25, 2009, 11:01:26 am

xman is correct. I believe the difficulty in getting to both a preventative and therapeutic  vaccine is attaching to the non-mutatable targets on the virus (among other things) due to their location on the virus. I believe we discussed this on another thread.


He was wondering what the point was of Geovax testing this vaccine for therapeutic purposes.

The only way they can know if the vaccine will work therapeutically is to test it.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on February 08, 2010, 11:16:34 pm
Geovax posted on update on their website today:

In brief, they are beginning Phase 2A enrollment at the final site (in Peru) for their preventative vaccine.  The next step is to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for a therapeutic trial of the vaccine to the FDA.  If the FDA does not express any concerns within 30 days after the application is filed, they can proceed.  Only 5 vaccine candidates have gotten to a Phase 2 trial. 

The preventative vaccine enrollment criteria is fairly limited.  The trial will be conducted in Atlanta, and enrollment will be limited to people who started on ARVs within 6 months of testing positive. 

Also, there's another press release on their site stating they will be presenting an update at an investors' conference tomorrow at 1 pm.  It will be broadcast live on their website.

http://www.geovax.com/newsroom/clinical%20update%202-10.pdf
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on February 08, 2010, 11:56:04 pm

The preventative vaccine enrollment criteria is fairly limited.  The trial will be conducted in Atlanta, and enrollment will be limited to people who started on ARVs within 6 months of testing positive. 


I guess you meant to say "therapeutic."

I'm curious what the specific results were for the therapeutic vaccine they tried on non-human primates.  Harriet Robinson has been quoted as saying, “Based on the success of the simian prototype of the GeoVax vaccine in controlling established infections in the non-human primate model, we believe our vaccine should be effective in at least some infected humans,”

Were the monkeys able to control their infection without any meds at all because of the vaccine? And if so, for how long?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on February 09, 2010, 07:45:37 am
Oops. Thanks for catching that mistake Inchingblue.  I probably shouldn't post at the end of a long day before going to bed :)

Yes, it would be good to get an update about the non-human primates that were given the therapeutic vaccine a few years ago.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on February 09, 2010, 08:35:59 am

Inch and Cosmic,

You asked:


"Were the monkeys able to control their infection without any meds at all because of the vaccine? And if so, for how long?"

Answer: Yes, they were able to control the virus for at least one year. See this from 2007:


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/62484.php

If it works therapeutically in humans the way it worked in simians, we got a winner!

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on February 09, 2010, 11:46:31 am
I just don't get it, though. These monkeys had recently been exposed to the virus when they were vaccinated so the fact that they controlled the infection for over one year doesn't sound that impressive. It's well-known that, at least in humans, most people can control HIV for not just one year but for many years before it starts to really take over. In fact, that's the usual progression of HIV, most people can control it for at least a few years.

I do hope it works but a more realistic simian model would be if they took monkeys who had been living with the virus for several years and then vaccinated them.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on February 09, 2010, 12:53:49 pm

Inch,

Not necessarily. Here is what the link said:

"n this trial, two monkeys were infected with the SIV AIDS virus and then placed on drug therapy. Thereafter, once early drug therapy had temporarily reduced virus levels, the monkeys were vaccinated with the SIV version of GeoVax's DNA/MVA vaccines. Six weeks after vaccination, drug treatment was discontinued. The SIV virus levels temporarily rose in the vaccinated individuals, but were later "controlled" (reduced to much lower levels) by immune responses raised by the vaccines."

The viral load had to be high before drug therapy which suggests the monkeys were given the virus earlier since the drug therapy lowered the viral load.

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: John2038 on February 09, 2010, 03:13:06 pm
Two of the slides reminded today by GeoVax:

(http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6090/geovaxtrial.th.gif) (http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/6090/geovaxtrial.gif) (http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/853/geovaxtheraa.th.gif) (http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/853/geovaxtheraa.gif)

On the paper, the results sounds just impressive.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on February 09, 2010, 09:53:01 pm
Inch,

Not necessarily. Here is what the link said:

"n this trial, two monkeys were infected with the SIV AIDS virus and then placed on drug therapy. Thereafter, once early drug therapy had temporarily reduced virus levels, the monkeys were vaccinated with the SIV version of GeoVax's DNA/MVA vaccines. Six weeks after vaccination, drug treatment was discontinued. The SIV virus levels temporarily rose in the vaccinated individuals, but were later "controlled" (reduced to much lower levels) by immune responses raised by the vaccines."

The viral load had to be high before drug therapy which suggests the monkeys were given the virus earlier since the drug therapy lowered the viral load.

v


That's my point, soon after HIV exposure viral load goes way up and CD4s go down before things begin to stabilize. This is what happens in most cases of HIV infection without any intervention.

It's vague the way they describe it as far as how long the monkeys had been infected before they were vaccinated but it seems that the vaccination happened shortly after infection. In fact I think the whole point of this study is to vaccinate people within 6 months of infection, right?

As I said, I do hope it works but I have more faith in other approaches, such as stem cell therapy and even nanoviricides.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on February 09, 2010, 11:12:54 pm
Inchingblue, the slide that John posted shows that the monkeys were put on ARVs 12 weeks after infection, and then after they had the virus well controlled, they began the first of 3 vaccinations at 50 weeks, the 2nd one at 58 weeks, and then the final one at 66 weeks.  At week 72, treatement with ARVs was stopped.  Viral loads increased briefly but then dropped significantly.  40 weeks later (at week 112), both monkeys still had viral loads significantly lower than the set points they were at at week 12.  One was 100 times lower and the other was 1,000 times lower.  According to the chart, it appears that the one monkey was undetectable at week 112. 

The one thing I'd like to know is, given that this was in 2007, what's the condition of these monkeys now, over 2 1/2 years later.  Are they still maintaining very low viral loads?  Are there signs of disease progression or do they appear healthy?  If their viral load climbs, would they benefit from booster shots every few years?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on February 10, 2010, 06:31:16 am

Cosmic, Inch,

All good questions.
 
Musings ---------           

Also, we know that hiv does most of it's damage within the first 7 to 10 days of infection, establishing itself in the reservoirs in humans. Does this mechanism occur at the same rate in simians ? If the infection works more quickly in the monkeys, then the vaccination moa would be more relevant to the way humans get infected. Does anyone have any ideas?

John,
Thanks for those slides. Those results are impressive.

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on March 02, 2010, 08:01:37 pm
Geovax has another vaccine in clinical trials.  They reported at CROI that a "prototype adjuvant-supplemented HIV vaccine" was tested in preclinical animal studies, and results from the study using non-human primates indicate 70% level of protection from infection.  5 of the 7 primates were not infected despite repeated exposure to SIV.  More details in the link below.

http://www.geovax.com/newsroom/CROI%20Feb%2018.pdf
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on March 03, 2010, 05:47:32 pm
Quote
Geovax has another vaccine in clinical trials.  They reported at CROI that a "prototype adjuvant-supplemented HIV vaccine" was tested in preclinical animal studies, and results from the study using non-human primates indicate 70% level of protection from infection.


Just to clarify, my understanding is that what they are talking about here is an adjuvant to the preventative vaccine currently in phase II trials (and when are the ever going to give us some data on that??).  It's interesting because they went to all the trouble to get the current one into trials and now are saying that in case it doesn't work, the adjuvant might just do the trick.  I'm glad I didn't have to write that press release.  Now, if they would finally stop TALKING about testing theraputically and actually do it.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: tash08 on March 03, 2010, 08:54:18 pm
Hi NYC guy, actually Geoxax just filed IND with the FDA on March 01, 2010. FDA has 30 days to respond. Hopefully FDA doesn't have any objections and they can move on to clinical trials.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on March 30, 2010, 04:51:06 pm
FDA allows GeoVax Labs to commence phase 1 clinical trial for HIV/AIDS therapeutic vaccine

GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX), a biotechnology company that creates, develops, and tests innovative HIV/AIDS vaccines, is now allowed by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) to begin a phase 1 clinical trial for GeoVax's therapeutic vaccine, which is intended as a treatment for individuals infected with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). The company will begin a non-blinded study in HIV infected individuals who started drug treatment during their first year of infection.

Robert McNally, Ph.D., President and CEO of GeoVax, stated, "Based upon preclinical animal data, we believe our therapeutic vaccine may improve treatment options for people infected with HIV and are delighted we will be able to begin a phase 1 clinical trial. An unmet need exists in the market for a HIV therapeutic vaccine if it can reduce the need for expensive and poorly tolerated lifelong oral medications currently available to infected individuals.  We also recognize that this trial will enable GeoVax to gather crucial information toward our vaccine's success on a more timely basis than the time required to perform a preventative trial."

The protocol for the Phase 1 clinical trial, conceived in collaboration with ARCA (AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta), will carefully monitor safety while evaluating the ability of the vaccine to elicit protective immune responses in vaccinated participants. The next step of starting the process will be a submission by ARCA to the IRB (Institutional Review Board) for local review of trial documentation, a standard requirement to protect human subjects. The trial is based on the achievement of post-vaccine viral control in animal studies conducted in recently infected non-human primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, affiliated with Emory University.


LINK:

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20100330/FDA-allows-GeoVax-Labs-to-commence-phase-1-clinical-trial-for-HIVAIDS-therapeutic-vaccine.aspx

Company to start HIV drug trials

LINK:

http://www.ajc.com/health/company-to-start-hiv-418847.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 27, 2010, 12:35:18 pm
ARCA Launches First Therapeutic Trial with GeoVax Vaccine
 
Study to Enroll HIV-Infected Individuals Who Started Drug Treatment During Their First Year of Infection

ATLANTA, May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GOVX), a biotechnology company that creates, develops and tests innovative HIV/AIDS vaccines, announced today The AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta (ARCA) has received approval to begin enrollment of the first therapeutic trial ever conducted using a promising HIV vaccine candidate from GeoVax, Inc. Although the GeoVax vaccines are currently being studied for HIV prevention, this is the first study using the same products for treatment of persons who already have HIV infection. ARCA is the only site for this trial.

"ARCA is pleased to be conducting this important clinical trial," said Dr. Melanie Thompson, Principal Investigator for ARCA. "New approaches to HIV treatment are critically needed, and an effective therapeutic vaccine would be an important tool in our ongoing efforts to treat people with HIV infection. A vaccine that enhanced the body's ability to control HIV and delayed or decreased the dependence on anti-HIV drugs would be a major breakthrough for HIV treatment."

To be eligible for the study, persons should have had a negative HIV test followed by a positive test up to 6 months later, and they should have started drugs to fight HIV within 6 months of being diagnosed. The study will last up to 77 weeks. All patients will be followed closely for safety and for the ability of the vaccine to elicit protective immune responses in vaccinated participants. Patients will be compensated for their participation in the study. Only 10 to 12 persons will be selected to participate. Persons who believe they may qualify for the study should contact ARCA at vaccine@arcatlanta.org or 404-876-2317. ARCA is also interested in identifying possible candidates who fit the enrollment criteria but have not yet started anti-HIV drugs.

ARCA worked together with GeoVax to design the protocol for the Phase 1 clinical trial. The trial is based on the achievement of excellent post-vaccine viral control in animal studies conducted in recently infected non-human primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, affiliated with Emory University.

LINK:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arca-launches-first-therapeutic-trial-with-geovax-vaccine-95025629.html
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ElZorro on May 30, 2010, 09:48:12 am
This sounds very exciting, but is anyone interested in participating? I fit all of their criteria, but the fear of stopping HAART and risking resistance makes it difficult (if not impossible) for me to make that type of decision. Also, it sounds like all of the research is based on the result of testing with two monkeys. Is that enough preliminary testing?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 30, 2010, 11:08:12 am
This sounds very exciting, but is anyone interested in participating? I fit all of their criteria, but the fear of stopping HAART and risking resistance makes it difficult (if not impossible) for me to make that type of decision. Also, it sounds like all of the research is based on the result of testing with two monkeys. Is that enough preliminary testing?

If the trial is done correctly then any issues of resistance would be minimized if not completely eliminated.

Resistance to a  drug only happens when the levels in one's system are too low to control the virus and/or if there are only one or two drugs present, as opposed to three (sometimes two drugs are enough to control HIV but not usually).

It's possible to go off meds without developing resistance if it's timed correctly based on the half lives of the medications in question.

If, for example, all three of the drugs in your combo have the same half life then stopping the medications all at once should not lead to resistance.

If the half lives vary, such as with Atripla, then to avoid resistance it's usually recommended to continue taking only Truvada for about a week to compensate for the fact that Sustiva (efavirenz) has a longer half life.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ElZorro on May 30, 2010, 12:09:27 pm
Thanks for the feedback, Inch...I enjoy reading your posts out here because you seem very informed.

I'm curious as to what you (or anyone) would personally use as a basis for making a decision to participate in such a trial (or would you)? I'm still very new to living with hiv but the thought that I could potentially take a shot (or series of shots) and not have to take meds anymore is exciting. As new as all of this is for me, I just feel that there are so many advances being made on so many fronts that it's possible that the end of HIV is in sight. Not having the years of experience that others out here have with this disease makes it difficult to determine if I am going through a "ridiculously hopeful/naive" phase or if all of the research news is as promising as it sounds.

That being said, "they" have been working for so long to find a cure that I'm not sure how one prepares himself to be a guinea pig. I know that sounds selfish as we would not have the meds that we have today if others hadn't been willing to take those risks, but that's how I feel.

Right now, I'm thinking that maybe I should just talk to my doctors about it and try to see if they could get involved to act as "agents". I did fire off an email to the company expressing an interest, but I'm not a doctor and have never played one on tv  :-\
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Boze on May 30, 2010, 01:38:47 pm
"I'm curious as to what you (or anyone) would personally use as a basis for making a decision to participate in such a trial (or would you)? I'm still very new to living with hiv but the thought that I could potentially take a shot (or series of shots) and not have to take meds anymore is exciting. As new as all of this is for me, I just feel that there are so many advances being made on so many fronts that it's possible that the end of HIV is in sight. Not having the years of experience that others out here have with this disease makes it difficult to determine if I am going through a "ridiculously hopeful/naive" phase or if all of the research news is as promising as it sounds. "

I don't see the risk as very high. Say you stop HAART and take their vaccine. As Inch said - there is no issue with respect to resistance since doctors would make sure that the level of drugs in your body is kept uniform, so you are not subject to monotherapy (which is what causes resistance).

Then you would be monitored for the VL and CD4. Given that you are now UD and 795, I don't see much risk if the drug does not work. Your VL would rise and CD4 drop, but slowly and you would reinstate HAART at some point (that I imagine would be agreed upon before you commence) - probably way before the 500 count is reached.

On the upside - if you drug works you'll be able to enjoy its use years before all of us :)

Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 30, 2010, 02:19:59 pm
are not subject to monotherapy (which is what causes resistance).
actually resistance is when the level of med in your system reaches and sustains a low enough level that the virus is able to mutate against the med and withstand the effects of the med. Resistance can happen with monotherapy or HAART (although failure of HAART is usually user-failure of adherence).

monotherapy doesn't really cause resistance, as much as it just isn't able to disrupt enough of the HIV life cycle, therefore allowing HIV to continue to flourish. HAART, which is used today instead of monotherapy, is a combo of meds (entry inhibitors, reverse transcriptase inhibitors, intergrase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, and maturation inhibitors) that attack different portions of the HIV life cycle all at once. This multi-prong method attacks enough quantity of the HIV in your system, while at the same time inhibiting enough of the HIV actions thereby not giving the virus a chance to mutate. (http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/hiv_life_cycle_5014.shtml)

of course, resistance could happen with monotherapy; but that's not the fault of monotherapy per se, as much as the problem with monotherapy is that it just doesn't do enough against HIV.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ElZorro on May 30, 2010, 03:37:38 pm
Quote
monotherapy doesn't really cause resistance, as much as it just isn't able to disrupt enough of the HIV life cycle, therefore allowing HIV to continue to flourish

Thanks for the layman's explanation, Leatherman. I didn't realize that was why there are three drugs in the Atripla that I take (the doctor probably told me and I didn't listen or "get it").

What are your thoughts about this vaccine trial? It doesn't sound to me like there will be any "drug" levels retained in the person's system as it is more focused on boosting an individual's immune system to battle HIV on its own. Is that right?
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Boze on May 30, 2010, 04:15:40 pm
actually resistance is when the level of med in your system reaches and sustains a low enough level that the virus is able to mutate against the med and withstand the effects of the med. Resistance can happen with monotherapy or HAART (although failure of HAART is usually user-failure of adherence).

monotherapy doesn't really cause resistance, as much as it just isn't able to disrupt enough of the HIV life cycle, therefore allowing HIV to continue to flourish. HAART, which is used today instead of monotherapy, is a combo of meds (entry inhibitors, reverse transcriptase inhibitors, intergrase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, and maturation inhibitors) that attack different portions of the HIV life cycle all at once. This multi-prong method attacks enough quantity of the HIV in your system, while at the same time inhibiting enough of the HIV actions thereby not giving the virus a chance to mutate. (http://www.aidsmeds.com/articles/hiv_life_cycle_5014.shtml)

of course, resistance could happen with monotherapy; but that's not the fault of monotherapy per se, as much as the problem with monotherapy is that it just doesn't do enough against HIV.

Thanks for clarification. The way my doctor explained it to me - and this was in regard to stopping of medication completely (not missing doses) - is that certain part of the cocktail has a longer life inside your body. So if a patient stops taking Atripla, one drug will continue working for a few days longer than the other. That would give the virus a change to develop resistance to the drug that is no longer working.
So for someone who plans to stop taking HAART, the doctors would provide separate a pill containing the drug that has shortest life inside the body, so that the patient can take it after stopping Atripla.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 30, 2010, 05:47:10 pm
So for someone who plans to stop taking HAART,
exactly. ;) that would be the method to totally stopping HAART (but who would want to do that?), rather than switching over to a new regimen. A switch should cause no break in HAART treatment, and thus would not allow med levels to fall enough for any mutations to develop.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 30, 2010, 07:05:02 pm

of course, resistance could happen with monotherapy; but that's not the fault of monotherapy per se, as much as the problem with monotherapy is that it just doesn't do enough against HIV.

Mikie, I find this sentence confusing. Monotherapy in the large majority of cases leads to resistance.

Boosted PI monotherapy can sometimes be enough to keep the virus at bay but it's not standard practice to prescribe this for most patients.

I guess what I don't get is saying it's "not the fault of monotherapy per se."  When so many people acquired NRTI resistance due to AZT monotherapy in the early days of the epidemic it was in fact "the fault of monotherapy,'' in other words, it was directly and unequivocally due to monotherapy that the resistance occurred.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 30, 2010, 08:32:51 pm
I guess what I don't get is saying it's "not the fault of monotherapy per se."  When so many people acquired NRTI resistance due to AZT monotherapy in the early days of the epidemic it was in fact "the fault of monotherapy,'' in other words, it was directly and unequivocally due to monotherapy that the resistance occurred.
from my own anecdotal evidence, most of the people I know who were on AZT monotherapy, including myself, did not develop resistance to AZT; instead AZT was unable to adequately suppress the disease (ie did not adequately reduce the viral load). By only attacking HIV in one part of it's cycle, AZT did not affect enough HIV and HIV was able to continue replicating. It wasn't resistance to AZT, as much as AZT was unable to kill off enough of the rapidly reproducing HIV.

Of course, more than resistance issues, it was the toxic side effects that forced people off the monotherapy. Of course, as time went by, they found AZT was still an effective med, but at reduced levels - and when combined with other categories of HIV inhibitors.

http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/70/9/5922
No difference in the development of AZT resistance was noted in isolates from individuals receiving AZT monotherapy or combination therapy.

http://www.thebody.com/content/treat/art2811.html
a large NIH-sponsored clinical trial which showed that AZT + ddI, AZT + ddC or ddI monotherapy were superior to AZT monotherapy in both AZT naive and experienced persons with CD4 counts between 200- and 500). Twenty seven patients (32%) had the codon 215 mutation which confers high level AZT resistance; these patients had a faster decline in CD4 cells and increasing HIV RNA viral load during 56 weeks of AZT monotherapy as compared to the 56 patients with wild-type virus. Of 42 patients with wild-type virus at entry, 31% developed codon 215 over the ensuing 56 weeks of follow-up. The concern about AZT resistance was magnified by the results of another study conducted in rural Iowa by Kozal and others who retrospectively sequenced the pol gene from HIV isolates of 99 patients presenting for evaluation from 1993-96. Although all were protease inhibitor naive, 29% had reverse transcriptase mutations
studies like this one, showed only about 1/3 of patients developed resistance with AZT monotherapy.

http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/InSite?page=ar-01-01
Implications of zidovudine resistance for treatment with other antiretrovirals
The addition of lamivudine or didanosine may maintain selective pressure for zidovudine-sensitive variants. In clinical trials, individuals treated with zidovudine monotherapy for many months experienced suppression of viral load lasting months to years following the addition of lamivudine and indinavir,(7) suggesting that resistance to zidovudine may take time to emerge or may be reversible with the addition of lamivudine.  
Interesting to see that AZT combined with Epivir might even reverse AZT resistance

http://www.annals.org/content/122/1/24.full
The 12-month probabilities for severe or worse toxic effects were 45%... for the zidovudine, ...Neutropenia was the most common toxic side effect associated with zidovudine therapy,
...with a higher incidence of severe or worse neutropenia in the zidovudine (41%)  
nearly half of monotherapy patients experienced severe white/red blood cell issues

for the time (late 80-early 90s), with what was known about HIV, and meds that were in trials/production, AZT was effective at keeping a great many people alive for a little longer until more meds could be developed and the need for a combination attack approach would be seen. However, many paid a price from the toxic side effects of the monotherapy.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 30, 2010, 10:18:05 pm
from my own anecdotal evidence, most of the people I know who were on AZT monotherapy, including myself, did not develop resistance to AZT; instead AZT was unable to adequately suppress the disease (ie did not adequately reduce the viral load). By only attacking HIV in one part of it's cycle, AZT did not affect enough HIV and HIV was able to continue replicating. It wasn't resistance to AZT, as much as AZT was unable to kill off enough of the rapidly reproducing HIV.

You really believe that NRTI monotherapy does not lead to resistance? If it did not happen in your case you were lucky.

The length of time for HIV to mutate around AZT can vary among individuals and many factors are involved, such as the person's viral load and the extent of immune damage but it will eventually happen (usually in a matter of months).

Keep in mind that resistance is not always "all or nothing.'' There are mutations that still allow some susceptibility to the drug and a mutated virus is usually less fit (i.e. less able to do as much damage). There is still resistance though and the virus will eventually win.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 30, 2010, 11:01:20 pm
You really believe that NRTI monotherapy does not lead to resistance? If it did not happen in your case you were lucky.
I don't know about all NRTIs but that quote I posted showed <33% of patients developed resistance to AZT. If the figure had been closer to 100% then there would be a lot fewer LTS around today. ;) AZT monotherapy had more issues of toxicity than resistance. so yes, I believe (and at least this study has shown) that not all monotherapy leads to resistance. At least not for 66% of the people who take took AZT (had to change the tense there, as no one foolishly takes monotherapy anymore since HAART is so much more effective, and so less toxic)
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ElZorro on May 30, 2010, 11:29:39 pm
I received the following reply from a Dr involved in the trial:

Thanks for your interest in our trial.  

Because of the many visits and close followup required, we are looking to enroll people who live in Atlanta area.  

There are 21 visits, including 4 vaccinations, in the first 32 weeks of the trial.
Then there are an additional dozen or more visits over the next 36 weeks.

We have not entirely excluded the possibility of enrolling people who live elsewhere, but it is a logistic challenge.  Any interest in re-locating to Atlanta for a while?

Also to know whether you might qualify, we would need evidence of seroconversion.  Did you have a negative HIV test followed by a positive within 6 months?  Otherwise, your labs look perfect.


Unfortunately, moving to Atlanta is probably not an option for me.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 31, 2010, 12:36:51 am
One thing I don't get about this GeoVax therapeutic trial (which I think I mentioned above in another post) is that they want people who seroconverted within the past year. Most people have a strong immune reaction to HIV and are able to control the virus for years without meds so how are they going to be able to parse what is an individual's innate immune response versus what effect GeoVax has since everyone is so recently infected?

It would make more sense if the trial was opened to others with HIV who have responded well to HAART, not only to those infected for less than a year.

I don't know about all NRTIs but that quote I posted showed <33% of patients developed resistance to AZT. If the figure had been closer to 100% then there would be a lot fewer LTS around today. ;) AZT monotherapy had more issues of toxicity than resistance. so yes, I believe (and at least this study has shown) that not all monotherapy leads to resistance. At least not for 66% of the people who take took AZT (had to change the tense there, as no one foolishly takes monotherapy anymore since HAART is so much more effective, and so less toxic)

instead AZT was unable to adequately suppress the disease (ie did not adequately reduce the viral load). By only attacking HIV in one part of it's cycle, AZT did not affect enough HIV and HIV was able to continue replicating. It wasn't resistance to AZT, as much as AZT was unable to kill off enough of the rapidly reproducing HIV.

Eventually everyone in the study on AZT monotherapy would have developed high level resistance. You agree that AZT alone is not enough to fully suppress the virus. When the meds are not suppressing the virus to undetectable levels, resistance will eventually happen. This is how mutations work, when there is selective pressure exerted by just one drug (in the case of monotherapy) or by one drug over another (in the case of a failing triple-drug regimen, which is essentially the same as montherapy) so the virus is then able to mutate and replicate, becoming the predominant virus.
 
These are the conclusions to the study you cite:

These data clearly suggest that AZT alone is worse than the other three regimens as initial therapy, in the patient group studied in this trial.

So AZT alone was also worse than the other three regimens for those who had already taken AZT.

In the 90s AZT was a stopgap measure that did save some lives but, putting aside issues of toxicity, it has been proven scientifically that it does not work as monotherapy long term because it is not sufficient to suppress the virus which means that eventually resistance will occur.

HIV usually becomes resistant when it is not totally controlled by drugs someone is taking.

LINKS:

http://www.aids.org/factsheets/126-HIV-Resistance-Testing.html#anchor67077

http://www.aids.org/atn/a-231-04.html

Re: AZT
There is substantial scientific evidence and published guidelines that do not (recommend) monotherapy with this drug;

http://www.thebody.com/Forums/AIDS/Meds/Archive/FirstLine/Q123132.html
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 31, 2010, 01:09:12 am
HIV usually becomes resistant when it is not totally controlled by drugs someone is taking.
the thing is that we have been mostly agreeing here. ;) Monotherapy, particularly the AZT kind, sucks. It's very toxic, often causes side effects, has sub-par effectiveness, and often results in resistance.

(But as some people took AZT for years without developing resistance, I don't believe that it is conclusive that AZT monotherapy MUST end in resistance. However, I believe that discussion is useless to continue as the data clearly shows that AZT monotherapy sucks canal water when compared to HAART and no one in their right mind has used AZT-mono in years, nor will they in the future.)

If you would take notice when I replied to Borzel, it was because he did not seem to fully understand the multi-drug approach in Atripla, or what actually causes resistance to develop - which is not "monotherapy" but "low levels of med(s) that allow the virus to mutate".

Resistance can happen with bad adherence to HAART (or out-n-out stopping HAART) as easily as it could happen to monotherapy.
I didn't realize that was why there are three drugs in the Atripla that I take (the doctor probably told me and I didn't listen or "get it").
Thanks for clarification. The way my doctor explained it to me - and this was in regard to stopping of medication completely (not missing doses)
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: veritas on May 31, 2010, 05:33:11 am

Inch,

You said: "Most people have a strong immune reaction to HIV and are able to control the virus for years without meds so how are they going to be able to parse what is an individual's innate immune response versus what effect GeoVax has since everyone is so recently infected?"

I'll guess at this-------- I haven't researched this particular vaccine in any depth, but from little I understand for the purposes of the clinical trial (phase2), they want to give the vaccine every reasonable chance to succeed. With a vaccine that is effective, the viral load should go to ud along with maintenance of a strong immune system (probably cd4% in the 40-60 range among other indications) without HAART. By recruiting the newly seroconverted, they have a strong immune system to help the vaccine work. Then they will go to phase3, where inclusion criteria would probably be relaxed somewhat.
My two cents.

leatherman & Inch,

If it weren't for AZT, I wouldn't be here now. I did not become resistent to AZT,  the side effects  rendered it unusable for me.

v
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Inchlingblue on May 31, 2010, 03:23:58 pm
 what actually causes resistance to develop - which is not "monotherapy" but "low levels of med(s) that allow the virus to mutate".
 

Low levels of meds do allow the virus to mutate but so does monotherapy (some boosted PIs being the only exception so far). That's the reason that the standard of care is to take three drugs. If monotherapy suppressed virus to undetectable levels we'd all be on it.

Mikie, when you say that AZT was not enough to fully suppress the virus that means there was at least some resistance. When you take one drug, say AZT as an example, if that drug is not suppressing viral load to undetectable levels that means there is resistance. It may not be full resistance, it could be partial resistance, in which the drug is still doing some suppression. If there were no resistance at all then the viral load would go to undetectable.
 
Those viruses that are still replicating despite the presence of the drug (or drugs) are the ones that have mutated around the drugs. Full resistance could take months and maybe even longer with some people but with monotherapy it will happen, guaranteed.


If it weren't for AZT, I wouldn't be here now. I did not become resistent to AZT,  the side effects  rendered it unusable for me.

v


AZT saved many lives (and killed many others). Did you take it alone, i.e., as monotherapy? If so, for how long? If you did for an appreciable length of time then chances are that some resistance must have developed. Maybe, as stated above, not full resistance, but it would be biologically impossible to take AZT for too long without the virus mutating to some degree. And if taken for long enough, it would lead to full resistance.


Re: monotherapy:

usually has only short-term benefits. And it has the primary effect of burning through all available antiviral drugs, helping the virus accumulate additional mutations that reduce the efficacy of any future regimen.

LINK:

http://www.thebody.com/content/art14371.html
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Miss Philicia on May 31, 2010, 04:02:46 pm
Mikie was diagnosed around the same time I was, and by that time ddi (Videx) was available and AZT was already on the lower doses.  If he started treatment like I did then it wasn't monotherapy but rather dual-therapy of both those medications, but I won't speak for him -- just saying what was standard where I was living at the time.

And yes, I became resistant though without pulling out my genotype tests IIRC my NRTI stuff mostly shows "susceptible" to the entire class, with the exception of viread and emtriva.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: leatherman on May 31, 2010, 08:05:26 pm
If he started treatment like I did then it wasn't monotherapy but rather dual-therapy of both those medications,
One of the bad things to getting diagnosed in a smaller city back in the earlier days of the epidemic was that it was next to impossible to find a doctor who knew anything about HIV, much less one that was up the on the latest treatment. (hey, when there's only one ID doc in town, you take what you can get LOL)

ddI hadn't even been on the market 6 months, so it  was monotherapy for me to begin with. That was 4 100mg pills every for 4 hrs, 24 hrs a day, for 9 months. Toxic side effects aside, the broken sleep was another awful side effect that doesn't get enough attention. Needless to say I still have quite an aversion to alarm clocks. LOL

Of course, in those days there wasn't such a creature as a viral load test, so all the doc and I had to go on was my tcell count (up from 5 to 125), red/white blood cells count (which showed the anemia in my case, not neutropenia), and how "well" I felt. At first, I did begin to feel "better" and had more energy. However after a while, the occasional barfing became a daily event - several times a day. Though the data showed the med was working for me, with all the puking I began to feel worse - much worse. Eventually I reached the end of my rope (and hope) and developed a 'quality of life' standard that I used with many of those earlier meds. When I realized that I was feeling worse than my partner, who really was quite literally dying, I decided that if I my remaining life was going to be one of throwing up multiple times a day every day, then I would rather just not take the med(s) and die.

Several genotype/phenotype tests throughout the years have proven that, even though my adherence to the AZT was hit-n-miss in the last couple of months before I just quit taking it altogether (against the advice of my doctor), my mutant virus is resistant to several things but not AZT.

And yes, I became resistant though without pulling out my genotype tests IIRC my NRTI stuff mostly shows "susceptible" to the entire class, with the exception of viread and emtriva.
speaking of emtriva, I was recently put on truvada and was worried due to an old genotype test that showed my mutant bug was resistant to epivir (which is very similar to emtriva). Instead I learned that the 184-186 mutations actually make the virus less fit. Eventually, given proper and sustained therapy the versions of this mutated virus can actually die off leaving you without this mutation, which makes those meds viable for therapy use once again. Ain't that cool? A resistance-causing mutation that mutates itself away making your virus not resistant any more.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: J.R.E. on April 09, 2011, 03:16:51 pm


http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/221740.php


GeoVax Labs HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development Leadership To Be Highlighted During 2011 World Vaccine Congress

Article Date: 08 Apr 2011 - 0:00 PDT



Harriet Robinson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB/OTCBB: GOVX), will provide an update on the status of the Company's therapeutic and preventative HIV vaccines at the 2011 World Vaccine Conference at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in Washington DC on Thursday, April 14. Dr. Robinson's invited talk, which will run from 11:30 - 11:50 a.m., will cover the topic of recombinant viruses as vaccines. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session at 12:30 pm.

GeoVax has a multi-protein clade B HIV/AIDS vaccine in an open-label Phase 1/2 therapeutic trial and in a double-blinded, 300-participant Phase 2a preventative trial. The preventative trial is being conducted and supported by the US HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). The vaccine was developed in Dr. Robinson's former laboratory at the Emory Vaccine Center in collaboration with Dr. Bernard Moss's laboratory at the US National Institutes of Health and researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recently, the Company announced a 70% prevention rate in a non-human primate study using their GM-CSF co-expressing vaccine. This represents the highest successful prevention rate ever achieved in such a non-human model with a preventative vaccine for HIV.

Dr. Robinson, formerly Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory University and Chief of the Division of Microbiology and Immunology at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, is internationally recognized for her work on HIV/AIDS vaccines, her pioneering studies on the use of recombinant DNA for vaccination and her seminal studies on insertional mutagenesis and oncogene transduction in retroviral induced cancers. She received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her postdoctoral training at the Virus Laboratory, University of California Berkeley. Dr. Robinson is active on several editorial boards and has consulted for the US NIH, the US Food and Drug Administration, the World Health Organization, and the Gates Foundation.

The annual World Vaccine Conference, which attracted over 485 delegates in 2010, provides attendees with the opportunity to hear from North America's leading governmental stakeholders, business leaders and scientific stakeholders as they continue to enhance the scientific and strategic innovation behind a burgeoning vaccine industry.

Source: GeoVax Labs, Inc
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ppp333 on April 09, 2011, 11:04:26 pm
Sounds great...Would a therapeutic vaccine trial require individuals however to get off HAART to see if viremia can be controlled?  Also is there any chance that a therapeutic vaccine would also be a cure, and that the health T-Cells and other parts of the immune system would be trained to kill the infected cells even the ones sleeping or dormant with HIV.  I just wonder if you get off HAART and have a functional cure how much immune activation is going on to take care of the virus that now is active rather than using HAART to do the trick so there isnt so much inflammation and immune activation which can cause other bad things ie cancer etc. 
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on December 30, 2011, 10:02:59 am
I noticed that Geovax posted a press release on their website on Dec. 13 that they inoculated their first HIV positive patient with their therapeutic vaccine.  I don't recall how many people are enrolled in the Phase1/2 trial, but perhaps we may hear an update from the CROI conference in March.  They're still enrolling people in this trial at several sites.

http://www.geovax.com/newsroom/pr_th_13dec11.pdf

GeoVax Labs’ First Patient Inoculated in Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial
for HIV/AIDS Therapeutic Vaccine Important Milestone in Study of HIV-Infected Individuals Who Started Drug Treatment During Their First 18 Months of Infection
ATLANTA – December 13, 2011 – GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB/OTCBB: GOVX), an Atlanta-based biopharmaceutical firm (“the Company”) developing vaccines that prevent and fight Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections, announced that the first patient has been inoculated in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the Company’s HIV/AIDS therapeutic vaccine.  This is the first study using
GeoVax Labs’ vaccines for the treatment of persons who are HIV infected.
The protocol for the Phase 1/2 clinical trial will carefully monitor safety while evaluating the ability of the vaccine to elicit protective immune responses in vaccinated participants.  The trial is based on the achievement of post-vaccine viral control in animal studies conducted in recently infected non-human
primates at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, affiliated with Emory University.

Robert McNally, Ph.D., President and CEO of GeoVax Labs, stated, “Dosing the first study participant marks a major milestone for our Phase 1/2 clinical trial. We are pleased to  have the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta, the Alabama Vaccine Research Center at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and the AIDS Research Alliance of Los Angeles participating in the trial.  These three trial sites are actively seeking persons who are interested in and fit the criteria for the study.”
To be eligible for the study, persons should have started drugs within 18 months of their last HIV negative test.  Persons who have been infected within the past 18 months, but not started drugs, are also eligible for recruitment into the study.  The first  participant was enrolled at the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: ichigo_kun on March 07, 2012, 01:58:54 pm
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/geovax-labs-presents-findings-potential-173000972.html (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/geovax-labs-presents-findings-potential-173000972.html)
ATLANTA, March 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Harriet L. Robinson, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB/OTCBB: GOVX), a biotech company specializing in the development of HIV/AIDS vaccines, announced the results of a study suggesting that scientists may be one step closer to a vaccine that protects against multiple exposures to HIV infections. The study results were unveiled by Dr. Robinson during a presentation in Seattle at the 2012 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).
Dr. Robinson, working alongside Rama Rao Amara, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and member of the Emory Vaccine Center, tested a novel vaccine against HIV/AIDS for the ability to protect non-human primates against a series of 36 exposures to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) given in three clusters of 12 each over more than 2.5 years. The serial exposures were initiated using the SIVE660 virus that is genetically distinct from the vaccine, followed by exposure to SIV251, the most potent strain of SIV used in non-human primate studies.
The high protective activity of the vaccine is achieved by co-expressing granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in the DNA vaccine used to prime the vaccine response. GM-CSF is a normal human protein that promotes the initiation of immune responses. By co-expressing GM-CSF and HIV proteins in the DNA vaccine, GM-CSF is present at the site of vaccination where it enhances the ability of the vaccine to elicit blocking antibodies for the virus. Blocking antibodies can stop a virus before it infects cells.
The vaccination regimen consisted of two DNA inoculations at months 0 and 2 to prime the vaccine response and then two booster inoculations at months 4 and 6. The booster vaccine was MVA, a recombinant poxvirus expressing HIV proteins. Six months after the last vaccination, both vaccinated and unvaccinated animals were exposed to a primate version of the HIV virus SIVE660 to see if the vaccine was protective. An 87% per exposure vaccine efficacy was achieved against a 1st series of 12 weekly exposures to SIVE660 with 5 out of 7 vaccinated animals being protected and none of the 9 animals in the unvaccinated group being protected. The 5 uninfected animals were rested for a year, boosted once with the MVA vaccine, rested for a half year and again exposed to 12 challenges with SIVE660. For this 2nd series of exposures, an 82% per exposure vaccine efficacy was achieved with 4 out of 5 animals being protected whereas unvaccinated animals had become infected. At this point the 4 uninfected animals were rested for 6 more months and then serially exposed to the highly potent SIV251 simian version of the HIV virus. For this last challenge, an 84% per exposure vaccine efficacy was achieved with 3 out of 4 animals not acquiring infection until the 11th or 12th challenge. Protected animals did occasionally show low indications of virus, but these were transient, seen at only one bleed, and appear to have represented locally controlled infections or false positives. No other HIV vaccine candidate currently in human clinical testing has achieved this level of preclinical success in non-human primates.
"Repeated virus challenges in animals are used to mimic sexual transmission," explained Dr. Robinson. "The hope is that the results in the non-human primate models will translate into vaccine-induced prevention of infection in humans."
"Excellent results like these give the industry hope that an effective HIV vaccine with long-lasting protection is not far from reality, and bolster our confidence that we are on the right track," says GeoVax's CEO, Dr. Robert McNally.
CROI is a scientifically focused meeting of the world's leading researchers working to understand, prevent, and treat HIV/AIDS and its complications. The goal of CROI is to provide a forum for translating laboratory and clinical research into progress against the AIDS epidemic. Over 4,000 leading researchers and clinicians from around the world convene in a different location each year for the conference.
The first generation GeoVax vaccine that does not co-express GM-CSF has shown excellent safety and reproducible vaccine responses in Phase 1 and Phase 2a clinical trials in over 400 uninfected people. These trials, supported and conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health HIV Vaccine Trials Network, set the stage for the 2nd generation GM-CSF co-expressing vaccine to move from its initial Phase 1 safety testing (slated to start in March of this year) to a Phase 2b efficacy trial in participants who are at high risk of exposure to HIV. The vaccine is designed for the "clade B" version of the HIV virus prevalent in the Americas. Since 1989, the United States, despite education and availability of drugs, has consistently suffered about 55,000 new infections per year. And according to a 2010 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), of those individuals in the United States who are diagnosed with HIV, only 35% ultimately achieve viral load suppression through drug treatment. Thus, there is an obvious need for therapies to complement drug treatment.
About GeoVax Labs, Inc.
GeoVax is a biotechnology company developing human vaccines for diseases caused by HIV. Our goals include developing HIV/AIDS vaccines for global markets, overseeing the manufacture and testing of these vaccines under GMP/GLP conditions (FDA guidelines), conducting clinical trials for vaccine safety and effectiveness, and obtaining regulatory approvals to move the product forward. GeoVax's vaccines are unique in expressing virus like particles that display the trimeric membrane bound form of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein. All preventative Phase 1 human clinical trials conducted to date tested various combinations and doses of our DNA and MVA vaccines, their ability to raise anti-HIV humoral (antibody) and cellular (cytotoxic T cell) immune responses, as well as, the vaccines' safety. Successful results from Phase 1 testing supported Phase 2 testing in an ongoing, fully enrolled, 299 participant trial in North and South America . GeoVax is also enrolling volunteers in a Phase 1/2 therapeutic trial for individuals already infected with HIV. For more information, please visit www.geovax.com.
Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: Cosmicdancer on August 14, 2013, 12:50:03 pm
Geovax provided an update on their therapeutic and preventative vaccine trials.  They should have preliminary results on the therapeutic vaccine trial with 9 HIV positive subjects later this year.  It involves a short treatment interruption.

GeoVax Reports Financial Results for the Second Quarter and First Half 2013 and Provides Clinical Development Update

8/12/2013
 
GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTCQB: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing vaccines to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, announced its financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2013 and provided a clinical development update.

Financial Review

GeoVax reported a net loss of $526,284 ($0.02 per share) for the three months ended June 30, 2013, compared to $497,763 ($0.03 per share) for the same period in 2012. For the six months ended June 30, 2013, the Company’s net loss was $1,223,081 ($0.06 per share) as compared to $1,228,276 ($0.07 per share) in 2012.

The Company reported revenues of $441,561 and $1,238,601 for the three-month and six-month periods of 2013, respectively, related to grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in support of its HIV/AIDS vaccine development efforts. This compares to $705,698 and $1,559,761 of grant revenue reported for the comparable periods of 2012. As of June 30, 2013, there is approximately $1.8 million in unused grant funds remaining and available for use.

Research and development (R&D) expenses were $553,199 and $1,435,187 for the three-month and six- month periods of 2013, respectively, as compared to $712,416 and $1,784,770 for the comparable periods of 2012. R&D expenses include direct costs funded by NIH grants, as well as vaccine manufacturing costs and expenses related to the Phase 1 clinical trial of the Company’s therapeutic HIV vaccine. Costs associated with the ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial of GeoVax’s preventive HIV vaccine, being conducted by the HVTN, are funded directly by the NIH and are not reflected in GeoVax’s financial statements. General and administrative (G&A) expenses were $415,784 and $1,028,727 for the three-month and six-month periods of 2013, respectively, as compared to $492,316 and $1,005,134 for the comparable periods of 2012.

GeoVax reported cash balances of $1,881,393 at June 30, 2013, as compared to $1,035,925 at December 31, 2012. Summarized financial information is attached. Further information concerning the Company’s financial position and results of operations are included in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.


Clinical Development Update

Therapeutic Vaccine Program

Phase 1 "Treatment Interruption" Trial - In 1H2013, GeoVax reported that patient enrollment for GV-TH-01, a Phase 1 “treatment interruption” clinical trial, was completed. The Company expects preliminary data in in the second half 2013, and should report final results and evaluation of trends in the first half 2014. The primary endpoint of this 9-patient study is to document the safety and immunogenicity of GeoVax’s vaccine in HIV-positive patients with well-controlled infections who are being treated with oral HIV medications. Following the vaccination series, the trial includes a short period of drug treatment interruption to evaluate the vaccine’s ability to control the infection in the absence of continuing drug therapy. The combined vaccination period, treatment interruption period and treatment reinstitution period for each patient is approximately 11 months.
Phase 1 "Combination" Trial - As previously disclosed, GeoVax has been in discussions with the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trial
Group (IMPAACT) regarding a potential Phase 1 clinical trial investigating the treatment of HIV-positive young adults with GeoVax’s vaccine in combination with standard-of-care antiretroviral drug therapy. However, IMPAACT has recently conducted a review of its core resources in light of current budget constraints and has now informed GeoVax that it will be unable to support this trial with its available resources. This decision by IMPAACT has no effect on NIH’s support for GeoVax’s preventive vaccine program. GeoVax intends to explore other options for advancing and financing its vaccine + antiretrovirals therapeutic vaccine program.
Preventive Vaccine Program

Phase 1 HVTN Trial - Patient enrollment for HVTN094, a Phase 1 clinical trial testing the safety and immunogenicity of GeoVax’s second-generation vaccine, was completed in the first half 2013. This vaccine co-expresses granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as an adjuvant and in non-human primate testing achieved a much higher level of prevention of infection than the Company’s first-generation unadjuvanted vaccine. HVTN094 is being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) with financial support from the NIH. This trial is ongoing and will be completed in 2013.

Phase 2 HVTN Trial - GeoVax is actively engaged in discussions with the HVTN regarding the design of a Phase 2 clinical trial of GeoVax’s second-generation preventive HIV vaccine. The Company expects trial initiation in 2014, following successful completion of HVTN094.

Robert McNally, PhD, GeoVax’s President and CEO, commented, “With the recent discontinuation of HVTN 505, a 2500-patient Phase 2b trial conducted by the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), our confidence in GeoVax’s vaccine technology has been strengthened. The vaccine studied in HVTN 505 used an adenovirus vector, or carrier, of genetic material from the HIV virus, similar to the vaccine used in the Merck trial (STEP/Phambili) that was halted in 2007. In contrast, GeoVax’s boosting vaccine uses a poxvirus vector (modified vaccine Ankara) which has been associated with clinical success. Our superb preclinical data and excellent safety profile give us reason to be enthusiastic about the prospects for our vaccine, which is now the leading preventive vaccine candidate for Clade B HIV.

“Our relationship with HVTN and NIAID continues to be strong,” Dr. McNally continued, “and we look forward to advancing our HIV vaccine to the next stage of clinical development with their guidance and support.”

View Financials (pdf)

About GeoVax Technology
GGeoVax’s unique, two component vaccine, a recombinant DNA and a recombinant modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA), is designed to stimulate both anti-HIV T cell and anti-HIV antibody immune responses. GeoVax’s DNA and MVA vaccines are used in a prime/boost protocol in which priming is done with the DNA and boosting with the MVA. Both the DNA and MVA express the three major proteins of the AIDS virus: Gag, Pol, and Env, and produce non-infectious virus-like-particles. GeoVax’s vaccines are unique in expressing virus-like particles that display the trimeric membrane bound form of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein. In GeoVax’s second generation vaccine, the DNA prime co-expresses GM-CSF with the virus-like particles, delivering a normal human protein that stimulates immune responses to the site of vaccination. All preventative Phase 1 human clinical trials conducted to date tested various combinations and doses of our DNA and MVA vaccines, their ability to raise anti-HIV humoral (antibody) and cellular (cytotoxic T cell) immune responses, as well as the vaccines’ safety.

About HIV/AIDS
AIDS can affect anyone, regardless of race, gender, age or sexual orientation. 33 million people are currently infected globally and it is estimated that there will be 2.5 million new infections this year. Since the beginning of the epidemic, over a million people in the U.S. have contracted the virus. Every 9½ minutes, someone in the U.S. is infected with AIDS. Globally, HIV is the top killer among women of reproductive age. HIV is a worldwide disease with different subtypes (or clades) of the virus predominating in different regions of the world. Clade B is the predominant subtype in North America. Globally, most infections involve Clades AG, B, and C. GeoVax most advanced vaccines under development are designed to function against Clade B.

For more information, please visit www.geovax.com.



http://www.geovax.com/news/financial/geovax-reports-financial-results-for-the-second-quarter-and-first-half-2013-and-provides-clinical-de.html


Title: Re: GeoVax starts injections for phase 2...
Post by: NYCguy on August 21, 2013, 02:49:45 pm
So does anyone know what's up with this?

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01909414?term=p1082&rank=1 (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01909414?term=p1082&rank=1)

It seems that the therapeutic trial with the 'second gen' vaccine (the one using their much-trumped new adjuvant) has been scrapped.  Does this have something to do with as-yet unreleased results from the second-gen preventative trial?  This makes me nervous.  Any insight or further info would be great.