Two Long Island biotechnology companies presented new research on promising AIDS treatments at this week's conference on HIV and other retrovirus diseases.
One of them, Farmingdale-based Enzo Biochem Inc., reported it is making progress on creating genetic immunity to HIV in human blood cells. Another, United Biomedical Inc. in Hauppauge, has engineered a new synthetic vaccine that might one day be used against multiple variants of the deadly virus.
Both developments are in early stages, but at least one patient on the experimental Enzo regimen is still producing new immune system cells that are resistant to HIV after four months.
Enzo and UBI were among hundreds of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, medical schools and hospital centers at the 7th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco. Both companies have long-standing AIDS-research programs and are hoping to turn their discoveries into lucrative products in the growing $500-million HIV drug market.
Using different technology, Enzo Biochem is using its patented "reverse-mirror" antisense technology in early stage human trials to develop its treatment of HIV infection.
Enzo Senior Vice President Dean Engelhardt presented evidence that showed the company's gene therapy remains active in at least one HIV-infected volunteer for more than four months.
"To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the longest survival periods for engineered cells in an adult human subject," Engelhardt said.
The Enzo-engineered anti-HIV genes, which are produced at North Shore University Hospital's Viral Vector Laboratory in Manhasset, are being tested among a small number of HIV-infected patients at the University of California in San Francisco.
"We are very encouraged, even excited, by these early data," Engelhardt said.
Plans are under way to expand the patient-testing program, he said, necessary "to confirm our preliminary findings and determine the long-term effect of this medicine." The objective, he said, "is to successfully modify white blood cells to render them resistant to HIV-1 infection...and to reconstitute the patient's immune system."