InnaVirVax is a French privately-owned biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of a cutting edge discovery in the field of therapy/prevention and prognostic of AIDS and HIV infection, other infectious diseases, and cancer therapies.
InnaVirVax is developing product candidates resulting from a beakthrough discovery, made at Inserm, the French Medical research council, the AP-HP, the largest hospital in Europe, and University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. Based on a new paradigm (i.e. the understanding of the mechanism responsible for the decline of the CD4+ T lymphocytes (CD4) in HIV-infected patients), the products currently developed by InnaVirVax will allow the prevention and the treatment of AIDS in HIV-infected patients. Moreover, InnaVirVax has an AIDS prognostic test in its R&D portfolio. Lastly, InnaVirVax is developing an innovative cancer biotherapy.
The discovery has identified that a dysregulation of the innate immune system is responsible for the loss of CD4 in HIV-infected patients. The understanding of this dysregulation (resulting in the presence at the surface of the CD4 of a NK cell ligand, making CD4 sensitive to NK-mediated cell lysis) has allowed InnaVirVax to design a therapeutic vaccine for HIV infection that has been successfully tested in non human primates and which has now recieved the authorization to run a first in man study. In addition InnaVirVax is developing an innovative cancer therapy.
