GSK's AS04 more potent vs Aluminium adjuvant

UK drug major GlaxoSmithKline says that new data published in the July 12 issue of the journal Vaccine demonstrate that its proprietary AS04 adjuvant system plays a key role in enhancing immune response.

AS04 was tested with Cervarix, GSK's investigational vaccine against human papilloma virus, a major cause of cervical cancer. The London-headquartered company noted that findings in human subjects showed that antibody levels induced by Cervarix teamed with AS04 were 1.5 to 2.1 times higher for HPV 16 and HPV 18, respectively, than those induced following vaccination with a conventional aluminium salt adjuvant at four years.

The evaluations, which are the first to directly compare two different adjuvanted formulations of Cervarix, also revealed that the immune response induced by the AS04-enhanced vaccine was consistently stronger and more sustained, at every evaluated timepoint, than that observed with the comparable aluminium-enhanced Cervarix vaccine, a performance maintained for at least 3.5 years, and also generated a more robust immune memory response, specifically, by producing consistently higher observed numbers of HPV 16/18-specific memory B cells.