VaxGen dumps its research commitments as AidsVax trial heads for Thailand fiasco

The failure of AidsVax to prevent infection with HIV - in clinical trial results published in 2003 - triggered an intense debate about the controversial product and its manufacturer, VaxGen Inc of Brisbane, California. Mail to this website, maintained by Brian Deer, shows that existing material on a VaxGen-AidsVax index is read by significant numbers. This page seeks to further inform the discussion

After pocketing millions in salaries, dubious bonuses, and shares in a biotechnology plant - all acquired on the promise of "the world's first Aids vaccine" - Dr Donald Francis, Dr Phillip Berman and their colleagues stunned the scientific community in July 2003, reportedly telling government agencies that the company would leave data collection from the Thailand arm of its controversial vaccine studies unfinished. This is notwithstanding that the data due to be gathered in Thailand was expected to be of wider relevance than merely the vaccine's effects - and was cited by the company as a key reason why they should receive public money and support from thousands of volunteers in the first place.

Under the headline "Race is on to save the first Aids vaccine," Sarah Boseley, health editor of London's Guardian newspaper reported that AidsVax was finishing with "an ignominious whimper" as VaxGen prepared to abandon the 2,500-volunteer Thai trial, with the US government and the Gates Foundation being asked to step into the breach.

Boseley writes:

The decision of VaxGen to cut its losses could mean the loss of invaluable data to scientists working in one of the most important research areas of our time. There are lessons to be learned even from the failures of a clinical trial, said a leading US scientist yesterday. More importantly, she said, if the western world pulled out of a trial in this abrupt way, allowing all the efforts of the Thai participants and staff to go for naught, it could wreck the chances of future clinical trials in developing countries.
"Imagine going to a developing country again and asking them to roll up their sleeves for an efficacy trial if we didn't finish this one," said Peggy Johnstone, director of the vaccine and prevention research programme of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the government-funded bodies considering paying the bill. "We have to consider their side of it as well. The rest of the world is looking at what happens. They are going to want guarantees."

The Guardian report says that VaxGen is "acting entirely on commercial grounds", with Johnstone, a key figure in Aids vaccine politics, quoted as saying: "What has happened is that their board of directors has said they are not interested in completing the trials." She said of the NIH: "We are in discussions now to decide what it will need to complete the trial. From a scientific perspective, it would be a tremendous loss not to complete the trial and analyse the data."

Boseley gets a quote from the company, confirming that all that was originally intended would not now go ahead.

VaxGen insisted it was not pulling out, but simply did not have the money to analyse all the data from the Thai trials. "The financial markets sent a loud and clear signal to us through the decline in our stock value and through conversations with members of the financial community. Their unambiguous response was, please do not spend more money than is necessary on your trials," said Lance Ignon, vice president of corporate communications. He said the company would announce whether the vaccine had worked this winter.