Cytel Corp. of San Diego on Thursday reported at the RobertsonStephens & Co. Medical Conference in New York that it has filedan investigational new drug (IND) application with FDA for itsCY1899, a therapeutic vaccine for chronic hepatitis B.

The vaccine is being developed by Cytel's joint venture, SequelTherapeutics, also of San Diego, with The Scripps ResearchInstitute of La Jolla, Calif. It is designed to stimulate a specificimmune response by combining a portion of the hepatitis Bvirus with a proprietary Sequel construct.

According to Cytel (NASDAQ:CYTL), Sequel's therapeuticvaccines directly stimulate a cytotoxic T cell (CTL) response byintroducing a fragment of a targeted foreign organism thatbinds to cell surface receptors, known as the majorhistocompatability complex (MHC), helping cytotoxic T cells to"see" foreign organisms.

When they interact with MHC, CTLs become activated andmultiply, inducing an immune response directed against thespecific disease-causing organism.

Wendy Johnson, Cytel's director of business development, saidthat folowing the 30-day review, the company will begin PhaseI safety trials of CY1899 in healthy volunteers. "All the clinicalsites are set up, and volunteers are being accrued," she added.

NeoRx Corp. of Seattle reported that it expects to file with theFDA all the supplementary data necessary for final marketingapproval of its OncoTrac cancer imaging product by thirdquarter of 1993. The company (NASDAQ:NERX) said it hopes tobegin Phase I clinical trials of its cancer radioimmunotherapyproduct that incorporates its pre-targeting technology using achimera in 1993.

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