PepTcell's FLU-v shows preclinical promise

UK-based biotechnology firm PepTcell, a specialist in the creation of novel vaccine products, says that preclinical data indicates that its developmental influenza vaccine, FLU-v, protects against all types of the virus, including both seasonal and potentially pandemic strains. The results, which were announced at the Options for the Control of Influenza conference in Toronto, Canada, will also be published in a forthcoming issue of the European Journal of Immunology.

PepTcell explained that it had employed a proprietary sequence prediction algorithm to locate conserved immunogenic regions in both animal and human strains of the virus, which were then chemically synthesized before being included as short-protein sequences, or peptides, in the vaccine.

Administration of FLU-v to mice resulted in production of T-cell specific CD8+ T cells which, in subsequent viral challenge assays, provided protection against three unrelated strains of virus. The firm said that it expects to initiate Phase I clinical trials in 2008.