ASX ANNOUNCEMENTImugene avian influenza vaccine success in US...

ASX ANNOUNCEMENT
Imugene avian influenza vaccine success in US trials
• avian influenza vaccine achieves proof of concept
• broiler vaccine progresses to product development
29 January 2007, Sydney, Australia: Imugene Limited (IMU) has received positive preliminary results from trials of its orally administered poultry avian influenza vaccine candidates. The lead broiler vaccine candidate has achieved proof of concept and will now progress to the product development phase.
The broiler bird vaccine provided protection for two thirds of vaccinated birds (7 survivors from 11 challenged) against a very high dose of a highly pathogenic Asian strain of the H5N1 avian influenza virus. All 9 control birds (not vaccinated) died.
Imugene Managing Director Dr Warwick Lamb said, “these are very positive results from a first proof of concept trial. The best vaccine candidate performed very well for this type of trial. We must emphasize that the virus challenge dose was many times more severe than bird flu outbreaks in the field.”
For the first time protection for birds has been achieved with oral administration of a vaccine. As we develop these vaccines we expect to achieve higher levels of protection due to
• further refinement of the vaccine candidates,
• adjustments to the dose and timing of administration, and
• lower virus challenges seen in the naturally occurring disease.
“This trial was a very tough test of the vaccine candidates. For example, the final challenge dose we used in this trial was 200 times higher than was used in Imugene’s 2004 Australian based trial in which all birds died within 48 hours. Additionally, the challenge virus strain was different from virus strain used to make the vaccine (heterologous challenge) as we also wanted to document protection across virus strains. It is normal for protection to be lower in this type of challenge model than if the challenge virus and vaccine come from the same strain of the virus (homologous challenge).
Future challenge trials will be at much lower doses to more closely simulate field conditions.”
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