AlphaVax announced the initiation of a Chlamydia vaccine programme based on its alphavirus vector platform technology. Genital chlamydial infections, caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, have been shown to be the most prevalent bacterial sexually transmitted disease worldwide. Although antibiotic therapy is available, it is usually a "silent" undetected infection, showing no symptoms in three-quarters of all infected women and half of infected men.

In untreated females, 40 per cent of infections will cause serious urogenital disorders including pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility. The Institute of Medicine estimates the annual total healthcare costs of chlamydial infections and disease in the US is approximately $2 billion a company release said.

AlphaVax will initiate studies on a prototype vaccine in collaboration with Dr. Luis de la Maza, MD, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. de la Maza is a leading Chlamydia researcher having published more than 150 peer reviewed papers since starting his work in 1983. His laboratory has established a state-of-the-art animal model of chlamydial genital disease.

"We are looking forward to initiating this sponsored research program with Dr. de la Maza to evaluate the efficacy of a Chlamydia vaccine based on our alphavirus vector technology in a clinically relevant challenge model," said Dr. Robert Olmsted, Vice President of Research at AlphaVax Inc. "This new program targeting a bacterial infectious disease complements well our alphavirus vector-based viral vaccine programs targeting influenza and cytomegalovirus where we are accumulating promising clinical results".

AlphaVax, Inc. is a North Carolina-based, clinical-stage company that uses a novel alphavirus vector platform technology that has proven to be highly flexible and immunogenic, and allows the same manufacturing, formulation, and delivery strategies to be applied to many different products.