Bio-Bridge's new AIDS vaccine to enter clinical trials next year
US-based based biotech company Bio-Bridge Science is developing a HIV vaccine through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Beijing which is expected to enter clinical trials early next year in China. The vaccine is based on exclusive technology that targets infection in mucosal tissues, the first type of tissue attacked by HIV.
US-based based biotech company Bio-Bridge Science is developing a HIV vaccine through its wholly-owned subsidiary in Beijing which is expected to enter clinical trials early next year in China. The vaccine is based on exclusive technology that targets infection in mucosal tissues, the first type of tissue attacked by HIV.
Bio-Bridge, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, is headed up by Dr Liang Qiao, a leading immunologist and associate Professor at Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine. Dr Qiao anticipates that the therapeutic HIV-PV Vaccine I will become available in 2008 (in China) and the preventative HIV-PV Vaccine I in approximately 2011 (in China).
The company says that HIV infection is primarily a disease of the mucosal immune system and so researchers believe that the ideal HIV vaccine must induce not only systemic but also mucosal HIV-specific immune response.
Bio-Bridge's HIV-PV Vaccine I for HIV/AIDS is based on papillomavirus pseudovirus technology co-developed by Dr Qiao. The technology is exclusively licensed to Bio-Bridge by Loyola University. PPV technology could have commercial applications in the areas of HIV, HPV and mucosal tumors such as colonic and cervical cancers.