HIV Vaccine Candidate Shows Promise in Early-Stage Trial

As researchers worldwide work toward creating a vaccine for HIV, new study results indicate that an experimental mosaic HIV vaccine may have the potential to protect against a wide-range of global HIV strains.

Researchers conducted 2 studies and observed that mosaic Ad26—based HIV vaccine regimens were both well-tolerated and induced a robust immune response against HIV in healthy adults and rhesus monkeys.

In the APPROACH trial of nearly 400 participants, researchers conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of several vaccine regimens in humans. They recruited 393 HIV-uninfected adults age 18 to 50 from the United States, east Africa, South Africa, and Thailand between February 2015 and October 2015. Participants either received 4 vaccinations over 48 weeks—2 doses of a prime vaccine followed by 2 doses of a booster vaccine—or placebo.

For the prime vaccine, used to stimulate an initial immune response, participants were injected with Ad26.Mos.HIV, which uses a strain of the common-cold virus. The 2 boost vaccinations used various combinations of Adv.Mos.HIV or Modified Vaccina Ankara, with or without 2 different doses of clade C HIV gp 140 envelope protein containing an aluminum adjuvant.

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