Barcelona University produces AIDS vaccine

AN AIDS vaccine has been produced in Spain.

The University of Barcelona (UB) is the first centre in Spain accredited by the Spanish Medicines Agency to produce advanced therapy drugs for the HIV and AIDS virus, which will begin trials on 36 patients at the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona in September.

The drugs have been produced at the Unit for Research and Development at the university’s Faculty of Medicine.

Doctors Josep Maria Canals, who heads the research unit, and Felipe Garcia, who co-ordinates the clinical trial, said the accreditation allows UB to perform all the production processes at all stages of cell vaccine for the treatment of AIDS.

Canals said the accreditation to produce the drug “is necessary to make a qualitative leap from basic research to clinical trials. It opens the door to other researchers and companies to undertake the whole process of manufacture of another drug of any of today’s advanced therapies, including gene therapy and regenerative medicine here.”

The university says Spain, with about 50 drugs in clinical development, is at the forefront in the field of advanced therapies.

Garcia explained that advanced therapies and, in particular, gene therapy or therapeutic vaccines including those used in the study, are the focus of new experimental technologies which aim to achieve the cure of the HIV infection and to eliminate the risk of contagion.

The trials will last a year and will involve taking a blood sample from each patient, working to isolate and purify the virus.

Scientists are hoping to achieve 99.9 per cent efficiency of the new cell vaccine and what doctors call a ‘functional cure’ in patients.

Blood sample from each patient working to isolate and purify the virus. Scientists are hoping to achieve 99.9 per cent efficiency of the new cell vaccine and what doctors call a ‘functional cure’ in patients.