BioCentury
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Treating H. pylori

ImevaX's H. pylori therapeutic vaccine may be more effective than SOC

April 6, 2015 7:00 AM UTC

ImevaX GmbH is developing a therapeutic vaccine against Helicobacter pylori that could be more effective than standard of care without generating resistance. The company also is developing two diagnostics for the bacterial infection, including a screening diagnostic that it expects will have better sensitivity and specificity than marketed tests.

H. pylori infection is largely asymptomatic but is linked to intestinal inflammation, ulcers and gastric cancer. SOC comprises a regimen of two antibiotics and a proton pump inhibitor (PPI). But CSO Markus Gerhard said eradication rates "barely reach 80%," adding that a rising number of patients have resistance to the "handful of antibiotics that work at all against H. pylori." ...