Johnson & Johnson halted a big trial of its experimental HIV vaccine in the Americas and Europe, a disappointment for hopes of battling the global infectious disease after a similar form of the shot failed earlier in a study in Africa.
(Bloomberg) — Johnson & Johnson halted a big trial of its experimental HIV vaccine in the Americas and Europe, a disappointment for hopes of battling the global infectious disease after a similar form of the shot failed earlier in a study in Africa.
The Mosaico study ended early after an independent data and safety monitoring board found it didn’t significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection, the company said Wednesday in a statement. The study had been testing the vaccine, which exposes the immune system to HIV proteins via another harmless virus called adenovirus26, in 3,900 people.
The trial used a similar version of the vaccine regimen as the Imbokodo study halted in 2021 in Africa which also didn’t meet criteria for efficacy. It’s the latest setback in efforts to develop an HIV vaccine that have been underway since the virus was first found in humans some four decades ago. While treatable, HIV infects some 1.5 million individuals annually, and about 650,000 people died from related conditions in 2021.
“It is disappointing that this particular vaccine candidate did not work, but Mosaico was an important, well-designed and well-conducted trial,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, a global advocacy group for HIV prevention. “The trial demonstrated that it is not only possible to design and conduct an HIV vaccine trial in the current environment, but that it is essential to do it.”
The shares fell 0.4% at the US market open.
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