Immune Response Corp. announced Monday that it will file aninvestigational new drug application to test a therapeuticvaccine for rheumatoid arthritis by the end of the year, with asimilar approach to multiple sclerosis and diabetes to follow.

The company's stock (NASDAQ:IMNR), which has been tradingheavily on the basis of its AIDS therapeutic vaccine, closedMonday at $57.25, down $2.25.

At a Montgomery Securities biotech conference in New York,the company said it is completing animal testing of thearthritis vaccine peptides, which so far show no toxicity.Immune Response spokesman Steve Basta told BioWorld thatthe company expects human testing to begin by early next year.

The company has isolated cells from the joints of rheumatoidarthritis patients and obtained the unique sequence of receptorpeptides from these T cells, Basta said. The peptides will formthe basis for a therapeutic vaccine that will be testedclinically "to see if it shuts down the immune response inpatients," he said.

A similar strategy is under way to isolate relevant, uniquepeptide sequences from T cells collected from patients withmultiple sclerosis and diabetes, with the MS programfollowing "about six months to a year behind" the arthritisresearch, Basta said.

The San Diego company has filed for patents on the technology.

-- Roberta Friedman, Ph.D. Special to BioWorld

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