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Biotech / Medical : Biotech for less than cash value -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AurumRabosa who wrote (76)	7/8/2002 11:52:20 AM
From: dalroi	Respond to of 684

Ron Yes the longer the survival index the beter the bargaining position stefaan

To: AurumRabosa who wrote (76)	7/8/2002 5:04:33 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Respond to of 684

Ron: VPHM is not working on a RSV vaccine. Their first candidate, in phase I human testing, is an inhaled small molecule for use in babies. If you go back through the VPHM thread, you'll find commentary by Cacaito that addresses some technical hurdles. It's a tough project, but babies die from RSV. There is a very effective prophylactic antibody that is marketed by MEDI, but there is also a need for a therapeutic entity. There are several efforts to develop a vaccine. I personally believe that we won't see an effective vaccine for at least 10 years, if ever. Effective immunity is, in a majority of studies, type specific, and there are multiple "serotypes". One attempt to vaccinate babies was a disaster, leading to more severe disease than would otherwise have been observed. I feel that the HCV program with Wyeth will be the major driver of share price. Here's some background material, not the best, but it's what I could find today....... Nat Med 2002 Jan;8(1):54-60 Respiratory syncytial virus infection suppresses lung CD8+ T-cell effector activity and peripheral CD8+ T-cell memory in the respiratory tract. Chang J, Braciale TJ. Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of morbidity from respiratory infection in infants, young children and the elderly. No effective vaccine against RSV is currently available and studies of the natural history of RSV infection suggest repeated infections with antigenically related virus strains are common throughout an individual's lifetime. We have studied the CD8+ T-cell response during experimental murine RSV infection and found that RSV inhibits the expression of effector activity by activated RSV-specific CD8+ T cells infiltrating the lung parenchyma and the development of pulmonary CD8+ T-cell memory by interfering with TCR-mediated signaling. These data suggest a possible mechanism to explain the limited duration of protective immunity in RSV infection. Clin Microbiol Rev 1998 Jul;11(3):430-9 Respiratory syncytial virus vaccines. Dudas RA, Karron RA. Department of International Health, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most important cause of viral lower respiratory tract illness (LRI) in infants and children worldwide and causes significant LRI in the elderly and in immunocompromised patients. The goal of RSV vaccination is to prevent serious RSV-associated LRI. There are several obstacles to the development of successful RSV vaccines, including the need to immunize very young infants, who may respond inadequately to vaccination; the existence of two antigenically distinct RSV groups, A and B; and the history of disease enhancement following administration of a formalin-inactivated vaccine. It is likely that more than one type of vaccine will be needed to prevent RSV LRI in the various populations at risk. Although vector delivery systems, synthetic peptide, and immune-stimulating complex vaccines have been evaluated in animal models, only the purified F protein (PFP) subunit vaccines and live attenuated vaccines have been evaluated in recent clinical trials. PFP-2 appears to be a promising vaccine for the elderly and for RSV-seropositive children with underlying pulmonary disease, whereas live cold-passaged (cp), temperature-sensitive (ts) RSV vaccines (denoted cpts vaccines) would most probably be useful in young infants. The availability of cDNA technology should allow further refinement of existing live attenuated cpts candidate vaccines to produce engineered vaccines that are satisfactorily attenuated, immunogenic, and phenotypically stable.