Mosquito saliva peptide vaccine has hVIVO upbeat

Clinical development services business hVIVO confirmed on Wednesday that the National Institutes of Health had presented partial preliminary results from the recently-completed Phase I study of AGS-v at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's 67th annual conference in New Orleans.

The AIM-traded company said the presentation focussed on safety and certain immunogenicity results of AGS-v - a mosquito saliva peptide vaccine - in the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase I trial.

It said certain primary objectives and endpoints were met, with AGS-v not causing any clinically significant adverse events.

An observed increase in vaccine -specific IgG antibodies with adjuvant present was also noted, which was described as “long lasting”.

Additional assays of the immunogenicity response and in vitro virus killing were ongoing, and would be reported in due course.

Those would enable determination of the remaining primary endpoint analysis related to immunogenicity, along with the secondary endpoints, hVIVO explained.

It said that, given the safety profile of the vaccine observed in the study, further development of the vaccine would continue.

AGS-v was being developed by Imutex - hVIVO's 49% joint venture with the SEEK Group - and the Phase I study was being conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH.

“The presentation of these partial preliminary results by NIH at the ASTMH conference is encouraging regarding safety and immunogenicity responses,” said hVIVO chairman Trevor Phillips.

“We look forward to seeing the full data when the NIH completes the sample analyses in due course, at which point, a full assessment of the trial results will be possible.”