Idibaps and IrsiCaixa participate in project for phase I/IIa tests of therapeutic HIV vaccine candidate
The program is called iHIVARNA and will receive €6 millions in funding over the coming 4 years from the European Commission
By Biocat
The August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (Idibaps) and the IrsiCaixa Institute for AIDS Research are participating in a European project to take a therapeutic HIV vaccine candidate through two phase I/IIa clinical trails. The project is called iHIVARNA and aims to immunize patients with antiretroviral drugs through three injections of HIV-TriMix-ARNm, a therapeutic vaccine candidate based on mRNA.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 35.3 million people are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). iHIVARNA is a groundbreaking project to fight against this infectious agent that led to the death of 1.6 million people in 2012. The project is coordinated by Dr. Felipe García of Idibaps and includes a total of eight research institutions from Catalonia, Belgium and the Netherlands, noteworthy among which are the Idibaps and IrsiCaixa, Vrije Universiteit of Brussels and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. It is funded by the European Commission and will receive €6 millions over the coming 4 years.
The participation of these two Catalan centers is a continuation of the work they have carried out in recent years. Highlights include HIVACAT, the program that has been seeking a therapeutic HIV vaccine since 2006, carried out by IrsiCaixa and Idibaps in collaboration with Esteve, the “la Caixa” Foundation and the departments of Health and of Economy and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia.
More information is available on the IrsiCaixa website.