February 16, 2000   11:56:49 

Enzo Biochem Encouraged By HIV Gene-Therapy Trial Data

Dow Jones News Service via Dow Jones 

"Preliminary data from its early stage clinical trials encourage Enzo's therapeutic division to proceed further, and the Farmingdale,  N.Y., biotechnology company may have found a general approach for delivering gene medicine to fight virus cells, according to Enzo President Barry Weiner and Senior Vice President Dean Engelhardt. "

"Enzo officials believe its delivery system - called gene transfer vector - could be used to block the growth of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, heart disease, diabetes and cholesterol."

"Because phase I trials for an HIV treatment haven't concluded, and safety and efficacy data has yet to be gathered and analyzed, some might say these assessments are too early. But so far, these trials have gleaned promising data, Weiner and Engelhardt said. "

"In early February, Enzo announced preliminary data for an HIV treatment that is inserted inside cells and designed to restore the immune system by producing healthy genes resistant to HIV. The data showed blood stem cells that were inserted with new anti-HIV genes hadn't only survived past four months, but continued to produce antisense RNA that inhibit the virus' growth. These trials began in August 1998. "

"Additionally, the preliminary data indicated scientists were able to cut the transduction process - the adding of antisense RNA genes to blood stem cells - to 18 hours from the previous duration of several weeks. "

"This gene medicine is designed to act like a "three-headed bomb" for an assault on the HIV virus at three different points in case the virus mutates, said Weiner, adding that by injecting antisense RNA, "we can stop the virus cold." "

"The treatment does more than stopping the virus cold; it makes the virus disappear. In some of the early trials' petri dish work, 99.9% of the virus' genes were no longer present after the insertion of the proposed treatment, said Engelhardt. "

"The survival and presence of antisense RNA have larger implications, according to Engelhardt. "Using genetic antisense, we are creating a cell that (can be) permanently resistant to the HIV virus," thus preventing continual attack from HIV, he said. "

"Buoyed by this information, Enzo intends to expand its clinical trials, conducted at the University of California in San Francisco, to additional sites, and increase the patient population in order to determine safety and efficacy data, said Weiner. "

"The potential of what we have here has yet to be realized," Weiner said. "What lurks within our company is so much product potential and once the product is tested, the whole pipeline underneath." 

 -Beth M. Mantz, Dow Jones Newswires;