Edison estimates $1.45 billion in peak sales should Bionor's HIV therapy progress through pipeline

Norwegian peptide vaccine company Bionor (OSE: BIONOR) has presented interim data from nine patients in Part B of the ongoing Phase II REDUC trial of Vacc-4x with romidepsin showing potential for the combination to reactivate and destroy latent HIV reservoirs.

Although the data is early stage and comes from only a few patients, analysts at Edison Investment Research have said: “We believe these signals are encouraging for Vacc-4x’s future, in particular as a functional cure for HIV.” Edison said that full data will be needed to confirm these trends by the end of 2015 and will be critical in determining the future development for Vacc-4x. It did not change its financial valuation, which remains around 993 million Norwegian kroner ($85 million).

This trial is the first time that Vacc-4x has been administered prior to romidepsin, with the combination safe and well-tolerated. Total HIV DNA is an indicative measure of HIV reservoir size, and in with Vacc-4x treatment, demonstrated a mean 21% decrease compared to baseline. This is suggestive that adding Vacc-4x led to killing reactivated HIV reservoirs. Viral load also remained low, even below levels of detection in seven of nine patients, implying that even when reactivating the viral reservoir, adding Vacc-4x appears to keep the virus under control.