ESTEVE And IRSICAIXA Sign Partnership Agreement For The Development Of A Vaccine Aimed To Eradicate AIDS In The Next 10 Years

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Also Included In: Immune System / Vaccines
Article Date: 03 Jan 2009 - 0:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Spain leads the most important and ambitious EU research fight AIDS project

Chemical/pharmaceutical ESTEVE group signs partnership agreement with IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, allowing ESTEVE to join research project. Partnership has been driven by Obra Social "La Caixa" and the Generalitat de Catalunya health department.

This initiative, first of this kind in Spain, situates the Iberian Peninsula among the International research frontline, and sees the daylight thanks to 2 prestigious AIDS research centers: the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute, located at "Germans Trias i Pujol" Hospital, and AIDS & Infectious Diseases Research Centre at Barcelona's Clinic Hospital.

During the last 25 years many significant advances on HIV control have raised up thanks to antiviral treatments. However, these drugs don't actually eradicate the infection; they are also extremely expensive and side effects after its consumption are usual. Moreover, they're not easily accessible to millions of people around the world.

Nowadays' main scientific and social challenge is the development of a HIV vaccine. The HIVACAT (Catalan Centre for HIV vaccine) Project for AIDS Research and Development is funded by Spanish bank Obra Social La Caixa, with an investment of 1.4 million euros on this project. Among other institutions that have provided financial support, there are: the Health and Innovation Department, Universities and Companies Department of Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Autonomic Government) as well as the Fundació Clínic, with an investment of € 400.000 each.

The project has been given an extra boost with this new agreement between ESTEVE and the AIDS Research Institute IrsiCaixa, and the 6 million euro investment that the group will bear during next 4 years. ESTEVE's involvement in the research process will start soon as vaccine trial phase has been reached, taking care of the post-trial development up until its commercialization. The agreement is to be a pioneering partnership in this field between authorities, researchers, companies and banks.

HIVACAT brings a change of pace to the AIDS vaccine research process that has been carried out up until now. Up to date efforts have been exclusively focused on inducing cellular immunity; in other words, there hasn't been a focus on generating antibodies in order to block the virus, a lack which has proven not to be enough for HIV virus neutralization.

HIVACAT research project focuses on "developing new vaccines that work in two different ways, therefore producing two types of immunological solutions. Firstly by generating antibodies that block and prevent the virus, and secondly by generating what's known as a cellular the cytotoxic solution, where certain cells of the immune system recognise HIV infected cells and get rid of them", explain Dr. Bonaventura Clotet, General Director of AIDS Research Institute IrsiCaixa and Head of the HIV unit at the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital in Badalona, and Dr. José M. Gatell, General Director of the AIDS & Infectious Diseases Department at the Clínic Hospital in Barcelona.

HIVACAT is currently looking for individual safety and effectiveness aspects of several viral components purified in the lab that allow neutralizing antibodies and cytoxic solution to be activated. Once the elements that stimulate a suitable level of immunity, to generate each one of these solutions, have been identified they can be combined in such a way so the join effect gives a certain level of protection against HIV.

"Let's say that, in about 4 years, the best vaccine candidates could be tried out on humans. And if it's proven to be effective, in some 10 years time the vaccine could be put on the market, which would be a decisive step forward in the fight against this awful disease", highlights HIVACAT Coordinator, Dr. Christian Brander, who left his job as a researcher at the University of Harvard in order to join the project.

A pioneer partnership between authorities, Universities and companies

One of the agreements' main advantages is that "with ESTEVE's involvement and commitment to the HIVACAT research project, they will be able to gain speed and efficiency in the development of new treatments and assure once research results have been obtained they are quickly developed up to the production stage of the new HIV vaccine", says Antoni Esteve, ESTEVE's General Director, who adds "partnership between public and private research's main goal is to develop an AIDS vaccine that reaches any needed person". The incorporation of the group to the HIVACAT Project will place ESTEVE on the frontline for International AIDS research and, at the same time, fill a relevant position as a committed and socially responsible company.

The following phases to overcome are also pretty straightforward. The more than 40 researchers that work at HIVACAT are to carry out a series of clinical trials aimed at developing the vaccine treatment that stops the progression of the virus in those already infected, and a preventive vaccine to prevent the infection in case of possible exposure to HIV. The challenge is huge, although the vaccine will be only partially active, it could help to considerably reduce numbers of infections linked to HIV.

Currently more than 33 million people around the world have HIV. According to the WHO, every year there are 2.5 million new cases, affecting mostly 35-45 year olds.

This last statistic, 2 million, corresponds to the amount of deaths worldwide due to AIDS in 2007. In Spain, since the start of the epidemic, a total of 74,885 AIDS cases have been reported (1,464 in 2007) and today Spain continues to have some of the highest numbers of AIDS cases in the whole of Europe.

GRUPO INFORPRESS
C/ Villarroel, 214, 1º 2ª
Barcelona
http://www.inforpress.es