HONOLULU, HI--(Marketwire - January 07, 2010) - Hawaii Biotech, Inc. announced today that it
has completed recruitment and dosing in a multiple dose Phase 1 clinical
study of its dengue virus monovalent vaccine. The double-blind, placebo
controlled, dose escalation safety study in healthy subjects is being
conducted at the Saint Louis University Center for Vaccine Development.
http://vaccine.slu.edu/. Vaccine recipients in this study are being
monitored for safety as well as for development of virus neutralizing
antibodies.
President and CEO Elliot Parks, Ph.D., indicated that preliminary safety
results and immunologic data from the healthy volunteers treated with three
doses of the vaccine will be available later this quarter. Complete results
are expected to be announced by fourth quarter 2010.
Hawaii Biotech is developing a dengue virus sub-unit vaccine designed with
high fidelity to the native viral antigens in order to provide protective
immunity to the recipients. The vaccine is nonreplicating and designed to
be safer than live-attenuated vaccines.
"We are looking forward to the analysis of the safety and immunologic data
from this monovalent vaccine trial as we develop our tetravalent dengue
vaccine," said Dr. Parks. "We hope to initiate clinical studies with our
dengue virus tetravalent vaccine later this year."
About Dengue:
Dengue, also known as "break-bone fever," is a prevalent infectious disease
in tropical and subtropical countries throughout the world. Approximately
3.5 billion people live in endemic countries and about 100 million people
are infected with dengue every year. Dengue infections result in an
estimated 20,000 deaths. Dengue is caused by one of four closely related,
but distinct, virus serotypes (DENV1, DENV2, DENV3, and DENV4), of the
family Flaviviridae, which also includes yellow fever, West Nile, Japanese
encephalitis, and tick-borne encephalitis viruses. Dengue is transmitted by
the bite of a mosquito infected with any one of the four dengue viruses.
Infection with dengue virus results in severe flu-like symptoms that can
lead to a life-threatening hemorrhagic fever. During the last quarter
century, many tropical regions of the world have seen an increase in dengue
cases. The southern United States is potentially susceptible to dengue
epidemics as the types of mosquitoes that transmit dengue virus are
prevalent there. Dengue cases were reported in southern Florida in late
2009.
About Hawaii Biotech, Inc.
Hawaii Biotech, Inc. (HBI) is a privately held biotechnology company
focused on the development of prophylactic vaccines for infectious
diseases. HBI has developed a proprietary protein production platform that
has application to the manufacture of proteins for use as antigens in
vaccines and diagnostic kits as well as research tools. HBI recently
successfully completed a Phase 1 clinical trial of its West Nile vaccine in
healthy human subjects. The company is currently in Phase 1 clinical
studies with a dengue vaccine candidate and is in pre-clinical development
with a vaccine for tick-borne encephalitis. HBI's product pipeline also
includes vaccine candidates for malaria and influenza. Hawaii Biotech, the
oldest and largest biotech company in Hawaii, is headquartered in Honolulu.
For more information, please visit: http://www.hibiotech.com.
