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Advax Adjuvant Platform Technology

Vaxine's Advax(TM) adjuvant platform technology offers significant benefits over competing technologies,being safer, better tolerated, more effective in addition to potentially having lower manufacturing costs. Advax(TM) adjuvants address the unmet need for adjuvants capable of boosting cell-mediated immunity. In laboratory tests, Advax(TM) adjuvants have proven to be 10-100 times more effective than other technologies in generating robust vaccine responses.

Adjuvanted Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Vaccines

The global influenza vaccine market is worth over US$4bn and is growing rapidly. Vaxine  researchers have shown the ability to enhance the protection of current influenza virus vaccines by incorporation of an appropriate adjuvant. This is particularly important for pandemic influenza vaccines where vaccine availability is likely to be limited. Vaxine is conducting ongoing clinical trials of adjuvanted seasonal and pandemic (H1N1/2009) influenza vaccines with extremely favorable results to date.

Hepatitis B Vaccines

Hepatitis B is the world's most common liver infection and it can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. It is transmitted through blood contact, unprotected sex, re-used needles or delivery of a newborn baby from an infected mother. Although many infected adults are able to get rid of the virus without any problems, a large number develop chronic infections, as do most infected babies and children since they are much less able to get rid of the virus. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) fact sheet, two billion people (1 out of 3) in the world have been infected with the Hepatitis B virus at some time and 350 million people are chronic carriers of the virus. Approximately one million people in the world die from liver failure each year as a result of Hepatitis B and five thousand die from this virus in Australia each year. Because of the severity of Hepatitis B, the WHO called, in 1991 for all countries to add Hepatitis B vaccine to their national immunization programs.

Vaxine researchers have developed a novel Hepatitis B vaccine that combines Advax(TM) adjuvant with a proven hepatitis B vaccine antigen. This hepatitis B vaccine has been extensively tested, and in animal models and early human clinical trials it has outperformed current commercial hepatitis B vaccines, generating a strong neutralizing antibody response plus an enhanced T-cell response, the latter feature being of potential major importance in immunization of subjects with chronic hepatitis B infection or who have immune impairment due to diabetes or kidney failure.

There is no cure for chronic Hepatitis B infection. Currently the only FDA approved medicines for the treatment for chronic Hepatitis B are interferon alpha and antiviral drugs. Both Interferon-alpha and approved antiviral drugs have normalised the liver enzyme function in 40% to 70% of patients. Unfortunately, both interferon alpha and antiviral drugs are very costly with significant side effects. In addition, viral mutations leading to drug resistance thereby diminish the drug effectiveness. In much of the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa, most of Asia and the Pacific) 8% to 10% of the population become chronically infected according to the WHO.Approximately one million people globally and 5000 in Australia  die each year from liver failure each year as a result of hepatitis B. Vaxine is therefore developing a therapeutic hepatitis B vaccine. This vaccine has been tested in animal models with very encouraging results. Clinical trials are currently being planned to test the vaccine in humans.

Japanese Encephalitis

Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus remains a serious health problem across Asia and India. Discontinuation of production of the traditional Japanese mouse-brain derived JE vaccine, has created major market opportunities for new JE vaccines to be developed. With its Japanese partner, Vaxine has been developing and testing a new cell-culture derived JE vaccine, which in preliminary studies has proven to be dramatically more effective than the discontinued vaccines and also several new vaccines that have only recently been approved for human use.