MULTICELL DATA DEMONSTRATES POTENTIAL TO PREVENT AVIAN FLU

MultiCell Technologies has reported that preclinical tests showed that toll receptor technology was able to reduce pulmonary virus titers by 1,000-fold in the H1N1 strain of flu to barely detectable levels. These results indicate that the technology may be able to reduce viral load in avian influenza. The H5N1 avian flu contains many of the same proteins as the H1N1 strain of flu, so the HINI results are projected to be important to the understanding of developing an immunotherapeutic against avian flu.

MultiCell's toll receptor technology employs double stranded RNA and targets toll receptors 3, 7 and 8. In studies of mouse models, the viral load was reduced by more than 90 percent. The results of the study showed that more than 100,000 units of pulmonary viral titers were reduced to negligible levels after administration of the immunotherapeutic. The company plans additional preclinical trials to further evaluate the methodology.