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Biotech / Medical : AVANT Immunotherapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: AVAN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Roger Bodine who wrote (396)	3/30/2002 9:46:39 PM
From: aknahow	Respond to of 513

They were not mentioned in the Nightline article. The older article does mention AVAN and serves as confirmation AVAN is involved. No mention of AVAN in this "new" news. Vaccine May Lower Cholesterol Twice-a-Month Injection Could Offer an Alternative to Twice-Daily Pills By John McKenzie March 27 — Sadie Picardo, 73, is losing her battle with cholesterol. She eats low-fat meals, exercises, and still she wonders, "What's going on? I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do and it's still not going down." Artery-clogging cholesterol is one of the biggest risk factors for heart attack and stroke. And unfortunately for some, stubborn cholesterol levels refuse to fall despite a careful diet, exercise, and even cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Now, on the cutting edge of medicine, emerges a potential solution: a vaccine designed to keep cholesterol levels low and arteries open. Twice a Year Versus Twice a Day For a while, Picardo tried statins to lower her cholesterol but shortly gave up, explaining, "I don't like taking pills to begin with, and when I would take this I would wake up the next morning and my muscles would be sore." According to Dr. Michael Davidson of Rush Medical College in Chicago, Picardo is like many others who start and, citing side effects, stop their statin medications. "Roughly 50 percent of people who start on a statin pill are not taking it a year later," says Davidson. In response to poor patient compliance and cholesterol levels that just won't budge, Avant Immunotherapeutics has been working to develop a cholesterol vaccine. The biotechnology firm's solution is a twice a year injection designed to alter the balance of cholesterol in the body. Compared to statin drugs, which are taken twice daily, the vaccine is expected to be a welcome convenience for thousands of Americans. Coaxing the Body to Produce 'Good' Cholesterol Cholesterol comes in two basic forms, the "good" and the "bad." Bad cholesterol, technically know as low density lipoproteins, or LDL, causes arterial disease problems by depositing fatty plaques the walls of the blood vessels. Good cholesterol, called high density lipoproteins, or HDL, helps unclog arteries by carrying some of the harmful cholesterol out of the bloodstream and into the liver where it is no longer a threat. The new vaccine is designed to coax the body into producing more of the protective HDL cholesterol. According to Davidson, the vaccine will raise HDL levels by roughly 40 percent to 50 percent. The vaccine takes "a very new approach to treating cholesterol," says Ronald Krauss of the American Heart Association. "It's a very new approach that has a lot of potential." In rabbits, placed on high-fat diets, the vaccine raised HDL 42 percent, lowered LDL by 24 percent and reduced fatty plaque in the arteries by 40 percent. These results are so promising that the Food and Drug Administration has allowed the vaccine to be tested in people. Early trial results suggest that the vaccine is safe, and researchers have now turned to the task of determining the most effective dose. Scientists will follow patients such as Picardo over the next several years to see whether this vaccine controls cholesterol in humans and actually reduces the risk of heart disease. Davidson says the trials are expected to be completed by May 2003.

To: Roger Bodine who wrote (396)	3/30/2002 11:47:55 PM
From: aknahow	Respond to of 513

Thanks, speed reading is not that great if you miss the main point as I did. Was over eager. Posted last week that ABC would have a Friday night segment on a cholesterol vaccine and then missed the program. Should have done a word search on the article before saying AVAN was not mentioned. But not too upset with my mistake. One has to wonder now, will the vaccine ever get approved and by when. Like AVAN more than ever, now. If this was a product derived from a plant and could be taken orally it would be on the market yesterday but we have the FDA to protect us so it may take many years before being turned down.

To: Roger Bodine who wrote (396)	3/31/2002 2:11:52 AM
From: aknahow	Respond to of 513

Roger, I like the endpoint. The principal endpoint is the change in HDL cholesterol measured after the six-month booster. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// To date, AVANT has received four separate Small Business Innovation Research grants totaling $974,000 from the National Institute of Health in support of the development of this vaccine. As further clinical data become available, we plan to seek a corporate partner to complete development and to commercialize the vaccine. Preclinical studies were recently published in the American Heart Association's journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (Rittershaus et al., 2000).