Oxxon Licenses vaccine technology from Isis

Oxxon Pharmaccines has licensed intellectual property on adenovirusvaccine technology from Isis Innovation. The license, which expands Oxxon's proprietary position in the field of infectious diseases and cancer, covers the worldwide exclusive use of an adenovirus vaccine for therapeutic and prophylactic applications.

The vaccine consists of sequential immunization delivering the same antigen with two different vectors; a DNA vaccine which induces a small and specific immune response which is then amplified by a viral vector carrying the same antigen, inducing a killer T cell response at a higher level than that produced by DNA vaccination alone.

Oxxon currently has a pharmaccine candidate for melanoma in a Phase I clinical trial, and one for hepatitis B which is still in preclinical stages, both of which utilize the pox virus, MVA (modified vaccinia virus Ankara), as the boosting viral vector. Phase II studies are expected to begin this year in malaria.