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Brisbane, California (pte038/28.05.2003/15:36) - California-based biotech firm VaxGen http://www.vaxgen.com has received permission to begin testing an experimental anthrax vaccine on 100 people.
When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorised the experiments, the company's stock rating improved by 84 per cent. VaxGen's stocks had been steadily falling after the failure of its AIDS vaccine was announced in March.
The testing of a genetically modified vaccine will begin within days at four clinical centres in the USA. The safety of the drug will be tested in the clinical Phase-I study.
None of the test subjects will come into direct contact with anthrax; scientists will simply examine them to see if the vaccine provokes the desired immune reaction. Tests with anthrax will instead be conducted on rabbits and monkeys, which will be vaccinated and then forced to inhale gases containing anthrax at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
The data from both human and animal experiments will be submitted to the FDA in the hopes of getting approval for the vaccine.
The government has supplied 13.6m dollars in funding for the development of the vaccine. VaxGen is also seeking funding for two further anthrax vaccines.
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