Brazilian Dengue outbreak highlights vaccine need

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:59:55 -0400

An outbreak of dengue fever in and around Rio de Janeiro has afflicted more than 75,000 people since the beginning of the year, with 12 people dying in just the past week. No vaccine is available for the disease, leaving health officials to house patients in a tent city of the sick as they call in the military to help fumigate areas in an attempt to eradicate the mosquitoes that carry the disease. Rio Governor Sergio Cabral says he may also ask Cuba to help by dispatching doctors to treat the ill.

Hawaii Biotech, meanwhile, has garnered a million dollar grant to move an experimental dengue vaccine into the clinic. Hawaii Biotech's dengue vaccine program has attracted $10 million in grants over the past five years. This latest grant is coming from the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative of the Seoul-based International Vaccine Institute, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

- check out this report
- read the Star Bulletin article on Hawaii Biotech

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Hawaii Biotech moves West Nile vaccine into clinic

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:59:55 -0500

Hawaii Biotech has passed a key milestone in its development, winning approval to begin a small human trial of its experimental vaccine to combat West Nile disease. Hawaii Biotech says that the FDA has given its researchers a green-light for a 24-person trial, which is slated to begin in April, pending full funding. Data may arrive as early as the end of this year. Hawaii Biotech is in a race to develop the first West Nile vaccine, banking on years of work producing high quality recombinant proteins that have been used in labs from Hawaii to Harvard. The West Nile virus has killed more than 1,000 people in the U.S.

"The West Nile vaccine will be the first candidate to enter clinical trials for Hawaii Biotech. This is a substantial milestone for the company as it is a novel vaccine candidate with which the FDA has had little experience. Receiving this notification from the FDA that we may proceed to human clinical trials is the first step in proving our technology in a clinical setting and to the scientific community," says Dr. Carolyn Weeks-Levy, President and CEO of HBI.

It's also been a long time in coming, as she notes to FierceVaccines. The company was founded in 1982 and has been fueled by a combination of $30 million in investment capital and some $50 million from grants and other sources. "These (trial) funds will come from private investors or VCs," says Weeks-Levy. But she's staying mum on the company's venture backers.

- see Hawaii Biotech's release
- read the report from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin