Jane Edwards
The U.S. Army has begun preclinical trials of its vaccine candidate against Ebola virus in combination with the PIKA adjuvant platform developed by China-based Yisheng Biopharma.
Study results show that mice that received a combination of the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases’ virus-like particle-based vaccine and Yisheng’s PIKA adjuvant platform demonstrated 100 percent protection from the virus compared with mice subjects that got the vaccine candidate alone, Yisheng said Thursday.
Yisheng’s PIKA adjuvant is a toll-like receptor-3 agonist that works to activate dendritic cells, macrophages and other immune cells.
“This is the first time we have evaluated the performance of PIKA adjuvant in combination with our VLP vaccine candidate against Ebola virus infection,” said Sina Bavari, science director at USAMRIID.
Bavari added the study provides USAMRIID a basis to explore other experimental vaccines against the virus.
Yi Zhang, chairman and CEO of Yisheng Biopharma, said the company expects to complete the Phase 2 clinical trials of its PIKA adjuvant-based vaccine against rabies by the third quarter of 2016.
The company said it has initiated preclinical trials of the PIKA adjuvant vaccine against other viruses including hepatitis B, HIV and tuberculosis.
