Durham-based Argos Therapeutics scientists are reporting positive results on an experimental therapy to confer individualized treatment to people infected with HIV.
The company generated interest from two presentations in Paris this week at the AIDS Vaccine 2009 conference, demonstrating safety and effectiveness from an ongoing Phase 2a trial of AGS-004, its personalized immunotherapy candidate.
The company said the AGS-004 results are "unprecedented for an immunotherapeutic candidate in HIV and, if confirmed in an upcoming randomized study, could lead to a new treatment paradigm for HIV."
Argos, a Duke University spinout started with help from a $10,000 North Carolina Biotechnology Center loan in 1998, has developed several platform technologies and a diverse pipeline of product candidates based on the biology of dendritic cells--the master switches that turn the immune system on and off.
The company's focus is on developing new treatments for cancer, infectious and autoimmune diseases, and transplantation rejection.
Last year Argos closed on a $35.2 million financing package--the latest in a series totaling some $88 million from business investors. Also, in 2006, the National Institutes of Health awarded the firm $21 million to develop novel HIV immunotherapy candidates. Its personalized immunotherapy products are designed to train patients' immune systems to recognize, target and destroy unique features of their diseases.