Helix BioPharma develops interferon-a cream
Helix Biopharma Corp HBP
Shares issued 13,776,415 May 18 close $1.36
Wed 19 May 99 News Release
Dr. Marianna Foldvari reports
An interferon-a cream to replace injections of this well-known antiviral
drug is now being developed by Helix to combat the disease threat from the
human papilloma virus (HPV).
Helix has decided to pursue the development of the interferon-a cream with
its proprietary BIPHASIX injectionless drug delivery technology to treat
viral infections, beginning with HPV, as a result of successful preclinical
studies.
Interferon-a in an injectionless format is expected to result in lower
health care costs and improved patient compliance.
"The highly contagious HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted
diseases causing genital warts as well as being linked to cervical cancer.
HPV has been shown to be present in 95 per cent of women with invasive
cervical cancer," said Dr. Marianna Foldvari, Helix's director of
pharmaceutical research.
It is estimated that more than 24 million people in North America have HPV,
and one million new cases of the disease are diagnosed annually according
to American-based Centre for Disease Control.
Current therapies to treat genital warts include freezing the warts off,
caustic chemicals directly applied to the warts, surgery, and the use of
creams and injections to stimulate the immune system against the virus.
These therapies are only effective in approximately 50 per cent of the
cases, and may have undesirable side effects.
The company's BIPHASIX uses a unique, lipid-based, microencapsulation
process, which is capable of delivering a wide variety of pharmaceuticals
and vaccines of varying size, weight and solubilities. This technology is
particularly well suited to biologically derived pharmaceuticals including
DNA and proteins such as interferon and insulin.
WARNING: The company relies upon litigation protection for
"forward-looking" statements.
(c) Copyright 1999 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com
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