Subject: Cambridge Bioscience, French Firm Join Forces to Develop AIDS Vaccine
Date: Published: 7/30/87 78 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Cambridge Bioscience, French Firm
   Join Forces to Develop AIDS Vaccine
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   Cambridge Bioscience Corp., a U. S. biotechnology concern,
and Institut Merieux, a French vaccine manufacturer, have
joined forces to develop an AIDS vaccine.
   The accord is the latest in a series of ventures and
independent efforts to find a vaccine for acquired immune
deficiency syndrome.  The venture links two countries that
 formerly were embroiled in a dispute over credit for
discovering the AIDS virus.
   Under the terms of the pact, Institut Merieux will pay
Cambridge Bioscience an undisclosed sum to broaden the
Worcester, Mass.-based concern's AIDS-vaccine research
program.  Lyon-based Merieux would receive an exclusive
world-wide license to market any resulting vaccine products.
   The collaboration combines the research capability of
Cambridge Bioscience, which draws upon a number of prominent
Harvard University scientists as consultants, and the
world-wide vaccine manufacturing and distribution track
record of Merieux.  A third company, Connaught Laboratories
Inc. of Canada, is expected to help with clinical trials,
Cambridge Bioscience said.
   The companies said they won't limit their research to any
one particular vaccine technology, but will broadly
investigate a number of approaches, including recombinant DNA
(or gene-spliced) vaccines; sub-unit vaccines using a
harmless viral protein; vaccines based on vaccinia (or
cow-pox); and so-called anti-idiotypes, which use antibodies
that look like the virus itself as synthetic vaccines.  All
vaccines work on the principle of using natural or synthetic
viral material to trick the body into creating antibodies and
other cells that later will attack and kill a real viral
invader.
   Gerald F. Buck, chairman and chief executive officer of
Cambridge Bioscience, said that "it's important not to see
AIDS vaccine work in terms of winners and losers, but in
terms of collaborators."
   The Franco-U. S. collaboration follows announcements of
 earlier AIDS vaccine pacts between Merck & Co. and Repligen
Corp., and between Chiron Inc. and Ciba-Geigy Corp. A number
of other companies are working on an AIDS vaccine, including
Genentech Inc., Genetic Systems Inc. and Viral Technologies.
   Merieux sells vaccines in 150 countries and has a major
market presence in Africa, which suffers uncounted numbers of
AIDS cases and is believed by many to be the cradle of the
AIDS virus.
   Jacques Armand, Merieux's director of research, said:  
"Progress in vaccines is very slow.  But the dimensions of
AIDS, and the fact that we're dealing with blood, sex and a
dread disease (places) people under pressure.  The pressure
will be high to test the product in animals and in man.  But
it's impossible to tell you dates.  We don't have a crystal
ball."
   William Haseltine, a scientist at Harvard and Boston's
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as a consultant for
Cambridge Bioscience, said the recent disappointing results
obtained by several groups in chimpanzee studies means
building a usable AIDS vaccine "isn't going to be as simple
as putting" pieces of the virus's outer coat in man.
   "Now, I'm saying, let's probe in great detail the nature
of the viral protein, to find out why there isn't protective
immunity," he added.  "It's going to be a real challenge, and
it will take multiple large-scale collaborations," to solve
the problem.

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