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NEWS |
Search for HPV Treatment Vaccine Heats Up, Researchers Optimistic
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Will there ever be a vaccine to treat cervical cancer? If the number of candidate vaccines is any indication, the answer is yes.
Researchers set their sights on a therapeutic vaccine for cervical cancer more than a decade ago when they learned that the disease is caused by a virus. But treatment vaccines targeted at the cancer culprit, human papillomavirus (HPV), have progressed slowly compared with HPV prevention vaccines, whose development began at the same time. Although two preventive vaccines are now speeding toward regulatory approval, no treatment vaccine has yet made it beyond a phase II trial.
Recently, though, three companies have announced plans to follow up on phase II studies with randomized trials which, though not yet phase III, could be important for this field. In April, Transgene Inc., MGI Pharma, and Stressgen Biopharmaceuticals Corp. all issued optimistic statements based on recent successes in early phase II trials
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