Merck drops HIV vacc candidate as it fails to demonstrate efficacy in DSBM review
US drug major Merck & Co says it has discontinued development of its investigational HIV vaccine candidate V520, after it failed to demonstrate therapeutic efficacy. The decision follows an independent Data Safety Monitoring review of interim results from the Phase II STEP trial, which concluded that product would not meet its efficacy goals and advocated that the program be stopped.
V520 utilized adeno-vector technology
V520 had been developed to elicit an immune response to proteins encoded by three key HIV-1 genes (gag, pol and nef), and was delivered using a modified adenovirus vector (Marketletters passim).
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