Business Weekly

Early trials show that Acambis's new vaccine may provide protection against the deadly HN-51 strain of bird flu.

The Cambridge biotech has kicked off 2008 in much the same way as it signed off 2007, with a share price-boosting announcement.
Acambis's shares were up a shade over two per cent to 123.5p following the announcement.

In addition to positive Phase I clinical trial data for its ACAM-FLU-A vaccine, the firm also reported encouraging pre-clinical results on a pre-clinical study to test whether the M2e-based vaccine could protect against the Vietnam 2004 strain(1) of H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu).

The H5N1 virus was lethal in the placebo-treated group, whereas 70 per cent of those in the group vaccinated with the M2e-based vaccine from the same influenza strain were protected.

Michael Watson, Acambis’ executive VP of R&D said: "These are exciting data as they show that our ACAM-FLU-A™ vaccine can generate a robust M2e antibody response and that M2e-based vaccines can protect against H5N1 avian influenza. We believe that these results confirm we have an approach worthy of further development."

ACAM-FLU-A is a recombinant vaccine linked to a Hepatitis B core protein. It targets M2e, a conserved region of all influenza ‘A’ strains. This approach, says Acambis, could overcome the need for annual vaccine reformulations and, since all pandemic influenza strains are type ‘A’, it could also be a potential vaccine against pandemics. The Phase I trial showed that the vaccine is well tolerated and immunogenic.

On New Year's Eve, Acambis announced that it had completed delivery of the entire 2.7 million doses of its ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine to the US Centers for Disease Control on December 28 2007 - ahead of the scheduled delivery in the first quarter of 2008.
 As a result, Acambis said it expected to record total revenues of around £9.5m in 2007, with cash for the delivery receivable from the CDC this month.

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