Herpes Vaccines

There are actually 5 vaccines in clinical trials right now (all with therapeutic potential):

The two that were mentioned

1. HSV-529 (formerly ACAM-529): Developed by Dr. David Knipe of Harvard, being manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur, and in a Phase I Clinical Trial at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/volunteer/hsv529/Pages/default.aspx

2. Dr. Ian Frazer's DNA vaccine developed and being tested in the equivalent of an FDA phase I trial (though done accepting new patients) by Allied Healthcare Group in Brisbane, Australia: http://www.coridon.com/files/AHG_Announcement_of_Update_on_Clinical_Trial_171013.pdf

The other three

3. The Genocea GEN-003 vaccine currently in a Phase I/II clinical trial (multiple sites): http://www.genocea.com/platform-pipeline/pipeline/gen003-for-hsv-2/qa-about-gen-003/

4. The Agenus HerpV vaccine in a Phase II trial (multiple sites): http://www.agenusbio.com/docs/press...for-genital-herpes-meets-primary-endpoint.php

5. The Vical (nameless) Vaxfectin Formulated Vaccine in a Phase I/II clinical trial: http://www.vical.com/investors/news...HSV-2-Vaccine-for-Genital-Herpes/default.aspx

Pre-clinical

Dr. Halford's has a blog in which he comments often on progress with his vaccine and (his opinion) on the state of HSV vaccine research. In particular for the current crop of vaccines:

Overall for gD Vaccines (GEN-003 specifically in the comments): http://herpesvaccine.scienceblog.com/2013/09/15/de-risking-hsv-2-vaccine-development/

Agenus HerpV: http://herpesvaccine.scienceblog.com/2013/11/12/on-the-agenus-herpv-vaccine-trials/

ACAM-529 (now HSV-529): http://herpesvaccine.scienceblog.com/2013/11/13/on-the-upcoming-acam-529-vaccine-trial/

(Taken from another post on a different herpes forum, if this isn't allowed I'm sorry didn't mean too) This is exciting news! Enjoy guys.

Heya BMS,

I agree! There's a lot of possibility on the horizon. And you know what? There has ALWAYS been this hope of a cure that is just over the horizon. What we always say here is that it's a double-edged sword to hold out hope for a cure if it's to the detriment of living fully now and moving past herpes as a roadblock now. We don't have to wait for a cure/vaccine to be okay, lovable and damn sexy now. ;) This is not to be pessimistic in the slightest; it's just reality. If a cure/vaccine comes, then great! If it doesn't, then we still get to live our lives to their fullest. ;) I've seen too many people over the years get so caught up in hope about a cure that they put their lives on hold waiting for something that still has yet to happen.

Here are a few links about this idea.

http://herpeslife.com/herpes-cure/

http://herpeslife.com/the-key-to-being-happy-with-herpes-give-up-hope/

http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/1818/test-for-herpes-viral-shedding-herpes-cure-vaccine-medical-advances/p1

http://herpeslife.com/herpes-forum/discussion/2277/herpes-treatment-options/p1

This is exciting news! Maybe in the future our children.. or children's children wont have to be exposed to the virus!

Imo, i have more faith in a working vaccine for h than i do cancer..

but i love @Adrial's p.o.v. of how we CAN still be sexy, and live fulfilling lives with h even if there is no cure!

Inspirational, both of you!

I'm still opting for the Sci fi approach. Human cloning and transfer of consciousness. One nerd can dream.... But hey I'll take a cure or hsv2 vaccine

@BMShas

@Adrial has hit the nail fully on the head ... as someone who has been "enhanced" most of my life (got H1 around age 3 and H2 at 17 - I'm 52 now) I've seen TONS of "promising" testing and research and nothing come to a head. I gave up years ago clinging to a hope of a cure/vaccine. I couldn't let that "hope" get in the way of me living life.

IF/when it happens, I will be as ecstatic as anyone else, but for now, I choose to live my life fully and not let this little bugger get the best of me ;)

@adrial @wcsdancer2010 Oh yeah dude, I agree, but it's just exciting to know people are finding vaccines to these problems. I actually never put any hopes into these cures and I'm not putting a hold onto my life because of that. It was mainly to share with the community is all.

@BMShas...thanks for sharing. I try to keep up to date on recent vaccine research; I find it interesting. Any news is good news to me. Do I put my life on hold holding out for a cure? Of course not. It just shows that H+ people are not being forgotten. It shows that companies/people are actively trying to come up with something to help us who have it and to prevent those from even getting this little monster. Any little bit of hope is great and I know we all are hoping for that light at the end of the tunnel. In the meantime, live life to the fullest, smile, laugh, love and enjoy each day you're given because you just never know when it will be taken away. Thanks again for sharing.

Just wanted to add that Dr. Keith Jerome is working on an actual cure, not a vaccine out at the University of Washington. I've gone through his research and corresponded with him via email. He's been doing research on this for six years, but says there are still a few years to go and obviously unforeseen obstacles that will likely be encountered. He also says all the technologies appear to be in place to make this a reality.

His approach is to actually cleave the viral DNA inside healthy nerve cells and force it to mutate in a very specific manner that inactivates the virus. He has had success in vitro and I believe in vivo, but still needs more data before he can consider advancing to clinical trials. Here is a link to his lab and all of their research http://research.fhcrc.org/jerome/en.html

Something I have found quite lacking in the entire H+ community is a unified voice. No one seems to be willing to speak to the psychosocial pain caused by this otherwise benign virus. It's hard to explain to people with money to burn what their donations could do to help almost 1 billion people globally. It needs to be done. Burroughs Wellcome did the damage when they marketed acyclovir, now we need to undo the damage and get the Warren Buffetts, Bill Gateses, and Larry Ellisons of the world to put REAL money into research. If these labs working on the vaccines and cures had the kind of money for this that they have for cancer and HIV they would most certainly make much more dramatic progress than plodding along.

We don't get money because we're not going to die from this, but sometimes the mental anguish of a condition makes people wish for it. This is the problem. There are also pharmaceutical companies out there that don't believe they can make the investment worthwhile, and no one is standing up to tell them that they have a responsibility not only to their stockholders, but to the people they can help. A moral responsibility to do what they can to fix it.

@ThisIsMeNow

Dude thanks for the link I'll take a look into it, I agree with what you said man, but at the same time I feel like people in the H+ community don't speak up because of the stigma. (But that's not an excuse, just saying.)

Well, if it makes you feel any better regarding the stigma, my mother (bless her heart) is probably going to form a non-profit to fundraise and raise awareness of the issue. She's read Dr. Anna Wald's book "Managing Herpes" and she is none too happy with the fact that the medical community doesn't consider this serious enough to warrant inclusion in the standard STI testing regime. She wants to see that changed and wants to see more money put toward curing a condition that while not fatal is a gateway condition to other far worse things and affects many hundreds of millions of people.

Really!? Thats amazing! Go mom!

Something I have found quite lacking in the entire H+ community is a unified voice. No one seems to be willing to speak to the psychosocial pain caused by this otherwise benign virus.

That is what part of this site is about .... working to create a space where we can create a safe place for people to unite... and then some of us will be taking this to the rest of the world to bring attention to the undeserved stigma we deal with.... Adrial and I and a few others are working on various projects ... and I'm sure Adrial would love to talk to your mother and see if she wants to come on board here. The more projects we can get started and get us all rowing together, the faster we can change the way we are treated by researchers and Doctors...

The HIV community has actually started to do more PSA/Ads and is paving the way to what they call "Full Frontal Honesty" about sex and STD's. I'm hoping we can piggyback on the conversations there too ... because while we certainly don't have the health issues to worry about that they do, we have the mental anguish that is nearly as bad for many with Herpes.

I would love to know more about what your Mom is hoping to do and would he happy to be involved in helping to make it happen. You can PM me if she is looking for some allies ;)

Thanks ThisIsMeNow! Tell your mom she is awesome! Also I'm going to look into Dr Jerome's work. I've already started adding some of his articles to my library. As an analytical chemist i will be looking into his research quite carefully. I will let you know if I find out anything :) can't hurt to be a little optimistic!

It's very solid research with a lot of potential. The only problem Dr. Jerome relayed to me is that it's still in its infancy for the most part. He thinks it's a few years away from any kind of testing. Dr. Anna Wald, a colleague of his, estimated to me via email that she thinks a cure is within 10 years distance. It's a long time, but it is better than nothing. In the meantime, we all need to figure out how to live.

I'll be the one to say it... "within 10 years distance" I'm sure they said that in 2000. I can always hope but it's never good to speculate. As Adrian and most have said it's best to live and continue to live. And the day that advertisement for your herpes cure comes around all we can do is exhale and say "finally". Til then keep living on and be excellent to each other.

Your mom is bomb.

@Virus - they said that in the 80's too ... don't believe me, look at this article... note that 1) It's from 1983. If you wonder why I am a bit jaded at all the promises for better vaccines/cures, this may explain it a bit and 2) they (like all drug companies) were more interested in a cure for their ailing profits than relief from Herpes :(

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/19/business/herpes-burroughs-wellcome-sees-its-treatment-as-a-way-to-cure-profit-ills.html

"The competition Burroughs faces for the herpes market is fierce and well financed. Virtually every major drug manufacturer - including Searle, Upjohn, Merck, Hoffmann-LaRoche and Schering-Plough - is focusing part of its research and development budget on vaccines, medications, diagnostic procedures or advanced forms of genetic engineering to combat, if not actually cure, herpes."

Assholes.

I'm pretty sure, if the drug companies weren't so keen on making money they would have made a cure for almost all the bull shit out there. Just saying.

Well, part of the issue is that HIV came along and took all the attention too for nearly 20 years ... and then you have the FDA which often seems to not want us to have cure for many things either ... such as one of the recent HSV drugs that was under trials and the FDA stopped the trials when they gave the rats something like several hundred times the dose and it killed them ... (I think Herry knows the details on that one)... so it's not just the drug companies ... its a bit of bad timing with HIV and the curve balls that the FDA throws at the drug companies too :(

Pritelivir was apparently causing adverse reactions in vivo in humans during Phase III trials. That's why it was suspended. As far as I know, the data from that is being evaluated and they will see if it's safe to continue.

This is an issue that should be intrinsically linked to the global fight against HIV. HSV increases the chances of contracting HIV 2-5x. It's not so scary in the United States (but still really scary) because less than 1% of the population here has HIV and we have all the most advanced therapies for it. It's terrifying if you live in sub-Saharan Africa where 80% of the population carries HSV-2 and the majority of the 33 million HIV+ persons are located.

One of the other problems I was told about by Dr. Anna Wald is that almost all potential vaccines against HSV do well in vitro and in vivo in mice and other animals. They don't necessarily do so well in humans. They tend to be far more effective in rodents and so a lot of the science is focused around how to improve the effectiveness when translating to a human host which is more complex.

I'm hopeful that Dr. Jerome or Dr. Fraser can figure this out. I know the ACAM-529 Phase II trial is now recruiting in Bethesda and that will last for 2 years. If it makes it to Phase III then it will be more widely available nationwide in an effort to accrue data on effectiveness.

Here is a list of all the vaccines currently in development and the type of vaccine. This is a link to a paper published by Dr. Anna Wald at the U of Washington in Seattle. Most of them are in preclinical now, but several are in Phase I and HerpV will be presenting data toward the end of 2014.

http://depts.washington.edu/herpes/php_uploads/publications/Current%20status%20and%20prospects%20for%20development%20of%20an%20HSV%20vaccine.pdf

I hope this helps anyone out there dealing with the same emotions I am.

Pritelivir was suspended in May 2013 because of the megadose studies:

The US Food and Drug Administration placed clinical development of pritelivir on hold in May 2013 (during a phase 2 study), the researchers write, "because of unexplained dermal and hematologic findings in a toxicology study of monkeys treated with daily doses ranging from 75 mg per kilogram of body weight to 1000 mg per kilogram (these doses were 70 to more than 900 times as high as a dose of 75 mg in humans). The reason for the findings in monkeys is currently under investigation; such findings were not observed in the current trial."

Sorry, but WTF are they doing a 900x dose trial? ... it's not surprising it caused problems...and slowed down the process of the trials ... THAT is the kind of crap that the FDA/drug companies keep doing that causes issues with getting drugs through to patients.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/819306

@Thisismenow

Honey - I know you want to grasp onto any straw that may give you hope for a cure. But fact of the matter, no matter what happens, we will be lucky to see anything within 10 years - I've been watching this stuff for 30 years ... I'm at the "I'll believe it when I see it" stage ... you will waste sooo much of your life if you are waiting and watching for a cure ... you have to get out and LIVE ....

All of us here just lost the crap shoot of sex. Life assumes risk, whether it's driving your car or your job or your hobby or sex ... we have many things we do that could bring us some form of "harm". The risk of being in a car accident is 2% - same as the risk of passing H with anti-virals and condoms .... Yet you get in your car every day and go somewhere. And every one of us on here could be injured or killed every time we get in our car ... so far, we've been lucky. But tomorrow can bring anything. So one day, you had sex and you lost the crap shoot and got H ... but you can still work, play, make babies, and find love. You just have to be a little more careful about it. AND .... you CAN find love. Promise.

(((HUGS)))

I realize this is not a vaccine / cure, but since this discussion veered into the realm of pritelivir, I just wanted to ask if anyone had any information about recent developments with Amenamevir (ASP2151). It is a helicase primase inhibitor like pritelivir that is apparently in Phase III trials in Japan.

See here: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01959295?term=asp2151&rank=4

Here for sciencey stuff: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpdd.108/abstract

Viral shedding in animals: http://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/16/9/7210/pdf

Or here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22351940

Not a ton of information that I can find on the all-impt viral shedding issue, but just thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone had any insights.

turn off the PC or the Mac or whatever and GO LIVE YOUR LIFE.

go to the bar, ask a girl out on a date, or a boy, or both!

HSV is an elusive virus; it is part of a large family of DNA viruses that cause infection in animals and humans. there are at least 5 species: HSV1 and HSV2 (orolabial herpes and genital herpes), Varicella zoster virus (chicken-pox and shingles), Epstein-Barr virus (mononucleosis), and Cytomegalovirus. ALL are extremely widespread among humans. More than 90% of adults have been infected with at least one of these, and a latent form of the virus remains in most people. Which is why a vaccine/cure is near impossible. Moreover, the profit-margin would SUCK. (big pharma sees no clientele)

the HSV family has been around for THOUSANDS of years. Are we seriously putting our eggs in one basket? LIFE IS TOO SHORT. Let's get out there, have fun. Let's be cautious, be honest. And let's stop victimizing ourselves.

I won't know how someone is going to feel about my HSV status until I tell them about it. I did nothing wrong. I'm not being punished by God.

Get pretty and go get lucky.

I love you,

C