The HIV vaccine pipeline thins out

The late-stage failure last week of Johnson & Johnson’s HIV vaccine candidate exposes just how sparse the pipeline is for prophylactic approaches, despite years of trying. The latest stumble, in the Mosaico study in men who have sex with men, came after 2021’s disappointment in the Imbokodo study in young women in sub-Saharan Africa. A look at the development landscape shows only a handful of projects in early-stage trials. And one of these could be set to disappoint: Vir Biotechnology disclosed last year that there had been no sustained T-cell responses in the first two dosing cohorts of a phase 1 study of VIR-1111. Data from the third and highest-dose cohort are due this half, but the company seems to have shifted attention to a next-gen candidate, VIR-1388, slated to enter the clinic later in 2023. Moderna also has two shots on goal with its mRNA candidates, in studies set to complete this year. The pipeline is rounded out by Worcester HIV Vaccine, which has a second-generation polyvalent DNA/protein HIV vaccine (PDPHV) project in phase 1. Companies like Gilead are looking to therapeutic vaccines as potential HIV cures, but a prophylactic now looks even further away.