Epimmune Awarded NIH Contract to Develop Epitope-Based Vaccines

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Epimmune Inc. (San Diego) a five-year, $2.25 million contract to further its work in developing epitope-based vaccines. Epimmune, a majority-owned subsidiary of Cytel Corp. (San Diego), is focused on the rational design of vaccines to induce specific immune responses necessary for treating and preventing certain infectious diseases and cancer.

"The NIH contract will fund further enhancements to our proprietary EIS," said Epimmune's vice president and chief scientific officer, Alessandro Sette. "Our aim is to achieve an additional ten-fold increase in throughput, so that we can more readily harness the opportunities now becoming available from the vast influx of genomic sequencing information."

EIS, Epimmune's proprietary Epitope Identification System, rapidly identifies and validates T-cell antigen specific epitopes from the genetic information of infectious agents or tumor associated antigens. (Epitopes are antigen fragments capable of eliciting an immune response.) The EIS integrates computer analysis of genetic information with receptor binding and functional assays to identify T-cell epitopes having potential vaccine utility. These epitopes can be rationally combined to develop "smart vaccines" designed to redirect the immune response to attack and destroy the infected or cancerous cells.

Epimmune applies its immunology expertise in the field of T-cell recognition and activation to the development of novel vaccines that stimulate the body's immune system to fight or prevent infectious diseases and cancer. Using EIS, Epimmune has already identified epitopes for a number of conditions, including breast, lung, and colon cancer, as well as hepititis B, hepititis C, and HIV.

For more information: Deborah Schueren, President, Epimmune Inc., 5820 Nancy Ridge Dr., San Diego, CA 92121. Tel: 619-860-2513. Fax: 619-860-2600.