GeoVax Labs Inc. (GOVX) Opens Third Site for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Testing

GeoVax Labs Inc., a biotechnology company in operation to create, develop and test innovative HIV/AIDS vaccines, today announced it has opened a third site for testing the therapeutic potential of its HIV/AIDS vaccine in conjunction with the AIDS Research Alliance, the nation’s only independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to the search for a cure for AIDS.

The Los Angeles-based ARA will team up with two existing members of GeoVax’s clinical trial site team, the AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta and the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

The therapeutic trial marks the first trial designed to test GeoVax’s vaccine as a possible treatment for HIV. The upcoming clinical trial will test safety, vaccine-induced immune responses, and the ability of the vaccine to control viral replication in HIV-infected patients.

GeoVax said previous studies involving simian prototypes of the vaccine in infected non-human primates demonstrated the vaccine’s ability to control viral replication in the absence of anti-viral drugs.

“We are excited to expand our therapeutic trial team to include the AIDS Research Alliance,” Mark Newman, PhD, vice president of Research and Development at GeoVax stated in the press release. “They are a group with a mission that parallels that of GeoVax, developing a vaccine to prevent infection by HIV and developing better treatments for those who become infected.”

Dr. Stephen Brown, ARA’s medical director, said that the development of new products and approaches that springing from existing antiretroviral drugs regimens would represent a major breakthrough in AIDS research.

GeoVax’s vaccines are currently being tested in HIV-uninfected persons in a phase II clinical trial by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), which are funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health.

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