Shares of Dynavax Technologies soared 35 percent after the developer announced that its hepatitis B vaccine Heplisav produced promising data in a mid-stage study, protecting patients with chronic kidney disease at week 24.
It was a small trial, enrolling 41 patients aged 40 to 70 suffering from a progressive loss of renal function. Researchers tested two different doses of the closely-watched vaccine. The vaccine, now in late-stage studies, protected all dialysis and pre-dialysis patients.
"Chronic kidney disease patients undergoing hemodialysis are at high risk of HBV infection, are hyporesponsive to current HBV vaccines, and have a worse prognosis if infected with HBV," commented Tyler Martin, M.D., Dynavax's chief medical officer. "These results demonstrate that Heplisav can effectively protect this susceptible patient population."
- see the Dynavax's release
- here's the Reuters story