Iomai Corporation (Nasdaq: IOMI) announced that travelers who received the company’s patch-based travelers’ diarrhea vaccine were significantly less likely to be sickened as compared with travelers who receive a placebo, according to research presented today by Chief Scientific Officer Gregory Glenn, M.D. at a late-breaker presentation during the “Vaccines and Pediatric Infections” session of the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy being held in Chicago.
“We have demonstrated that vaccinated travelers can dramatically cut their risk of diarrhea by using our needle-free patch,” said Dr. Glenn, Iomai’s founder.
“Those who received the Iomai vaccination were much less likely to get sick, and those who were sickened had far milder illness than those who received a placebo. These are clinically significant results that suggest that the patch vaccine will address the most significant unmet need for travel medicine: prophylaxis for travelers’ diarrhea.”
The study found that of the 59 individuals who received the novel, patch-based vaccine, only three suffered moderate or severe diarrhea, while 23 of the 111 who received a placebo suffered moderate or severe diarrhea, a 75 percent reduction (p=0.007). One of the 59 volunteers in the vaccine group reported severe diarrhea, compared with 12 of the 111 in the placebo group, an 84 percent reduction (p=0.033).
“The results presented at ICAAC are the most robust ever shown in the prevention of travelers’ diarrhea, and they suggest we may be near a turning point in the prevention of this common, often-serious disease,” said Herbert L. DuPont, M.D., professor and director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at The University of Texas School of Public Health and the principal investigator on the trial. “If Phase 3 trials for the vaccine validate these results, those of us in travel medicine will have an excellent new weapon in our arsenal.”
The research was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Iomai plans to begin a Phase 3 program for the needle-free vaccine patch vaccine in 2008.
“We are moving this product ahead as quickly as possible,” said Chief Executive Officer Stanley C. Erck. “This is a pressing, unmet medical need. Travelers’ diarrhea is the most common travel ailment in the world, yet there are no effective vaccines available for the condition. A recently completed market study suggests that there is a $750 million market for effective protection against travelers’ diarrhea, an opportunity that we are well-positioned to target.”