James Merson, SVP, Vaccines Research West, Pfizer, featured at Vaccines meeting, July 9-10, SF, CA
James Merson, Senior Vice President, Head of Vaccine Research West at Pfizer, will be giving a featured presentation on the "Development of a Peptide Conjugate Vaccine for Inducing Anti-IgE Antibodies to Treat Asthma" at the 10th Vaccines Research & Development: All Things Considered Conference on July 9th-10th, 2012 in San Francisco, CA by GTC.
- (1888PressRelease) June 13, 2012 - Elevated IgE levels are the key defining feature of allergic diseases, and by reducing levels of free circulating IgE, monoclonal anti-IgE therapy has been shown to provide clinical benefit to patients with severe allergic asthma or allergic rhinitis. However, the high cost of this type of treatment has limited its broader clinical application. The development of a vaccine approach to generate endogenous anti-IgE antibodies could provide clinical benefit to larger patient populations.
Pfizer has developed an anti-IgE vaccine based on IgE peptides conjugated to the virus-like particle (VLP) Qb, which has been shown to be an effective carrier for inducing therapeutic antibody responses, providing strong T-cell help and presentation of epitopes in an immunostimulatory array (Tissot et al, Lancet 371, 2008). IgE peptides were designed and selected for their ability to induce antibodies that were capable of binding to intact IgE in solution phase, but not to IgE bound to high affinity Fce receptors on the cell surface, and thus lack the capacity to induce the release of inflammatory mediators via mast cell degranulation. Preclinical studies with a murine anti-IgE vaccine showed that this vaccine approach dosed either prophylactically or therapeutically can markedly reduce total IgE levels induced in mice (e.g. by challenge with ovalbumin in Alum). High titer anti-human IgE antibody responses could also be elicited using a vaccine comprising human IgE peptides, and studies in both mice and non-human primates have been used to optimize the vaccine formulation.
James Merson is head of Vaccine Research West which has sites in the US (La Jolla) and Canada (Ottawa). He is accountable for developing both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for smoking cessation, asthma, Alzheimer's Disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease and several infectious diseases. He led Pfizer's first effort into gene therapy with Immusol for treating HIV, and as head of the Hit Discovery Group, established a Pfizer-wide process for the discovery of novel chemical matter through the use of Evotec and Aurora high throughput screening technologies.
At the 10th Vaccines Research & Development: All Things Considered conference, the people who make the discoveries, make the decisions, fund the work and license the vaccines come together to share their perspectives of the vaccine industry. The latest information on the new malaria, HIV, tumor, and therapeutic vaccines, DNA vaccines, adjuvants, mucosal and other delivery mechanisms will be presented, as will updates on governmental priorities, funding, and the FDA. Representatives from the HHS, BARDA, USAID and DARPA as well as NGO will provide a first-hand perspective into current US vaccines policy, regulation and funding as well as updates on the pandemic and bio-defense policy. All aspects from discovery to marketing will be covered.
For more information, please visit 10th Vaccines Research & Development or www.gtcbio.com
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