Argos Therapeutics Wins NIH Contract for Personalized Immunotherapy

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA) has awarded a contract worth more than US $21 million to Argos Therapeutics (Durham, NC, USA) for the development of the next generation of HIV immunotherapeutic agents.

Argos Therapeutics has focused on a technique that optimizes the treatment regime for each individual patient. This is done by using the patient's own dendritic cells to trigger an immune response. Cells are removed from the patient, loaded with RNA that code for specific pathogen antigens, and then returned to the patient.
This National Institutes of Health award provides validation of Argos' approach to personalized immunotherapy, which may have strong applications not only for HIV, but also for cancer and other infectious diseases, said Dr. Charles Nicolette, vice president of research and development at Argos Therapeutics. Our unique technology utilizes patient-specific HIV antigens, allowing immune targeting of all private mutations that differ from patient to patient. This product candidate should induce immune responses perfectly matched to each individual's unique viral profile.



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