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ICMR to test AIDS vaccines

NEW DELHI: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has announced plans to initiate Phase-1 clinical trial to test a combination of two AIDS vaccine candidates — ADVAX and TBC-M4 — in a prime-boost regimen.

The trial will be conducted at the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) in Pune and the Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC) in Chennai. “Prime-boost” is a way of combining two different vaccine candidates with the hope of getting a better response from the body’s immune system than giving either vaccine candidate alone.

ADVAX, a plasmid DNA AIDS vaccine candidate, will be used for priming the immune response while TBC-M4, an AIDS vaccine candidate based on a vector built from recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA), will be used to boost the initial immune response generated by ADVAX.

The trial will be conducted under the aegis of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Centre — through the ICMR and the National AIDS Control Organisation — and the not-for-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

V.M. Katoch, Secretary, Department of Health Research, said the ICMR was committed to give the country the best available tools to control HIV/AIDS. This involves their evaluation conforming to the international standard, and adopting the best practices.

The decision to initiate a prime-boost trial follows promising results of the Phase 1 trial of TBC-M4 vaccine candidate recently announced by the ICMR, NACO and IAVI. This vaccine candidate was tested at the TRC in collaboration with YRG Care. It was found to be safe and well tolerated. It generated immune responses — albeit modest — in 100 per cent of volunteers who received the high dose. The results suggested that the candidate merits further revaluation that could enhance the magnitude of its response.

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