AIDS treatment with potential

A small California company has agreed to license medical technology developed by a local biology professor to research a promising treatment for HIV and AIDS.

Under the complex agreement announced last month, Karen Newell, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs associate biology professor, will spend about a year determining how and why a compound called VGV-1 developed by Azusa-based Viral Genetics Inc. is effective in treating some HIV and AIDS patients.

If Newell’s research is successful, it will help Viral Genetics win U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to use the compound in U.S. clinical trials. Trials have already been conducted in Bulgaria, China, Mexico and South Africa.

The company’s Web site says the compound, which uses thymus nuclear protein in a suspension, appears to work by boosting the immune system to allow the body to fight HIV more efficiently. Studies have shown it reduced the amount of HIV in the blood of some patients.

Newell’s technology involves modulating the immune system and causing apoptosis, or the body’s process of killing harmful cells.

“This is a very important agreement for Karen, the University of Colorado and the company,” said David Allen, the university’s associate vice president for technology transfer. “It is a validation of her work in this area and should advance the company’s prospects of getting its product approved by the FDA.”

Under the agreement, Viral Genetics created a company called V-Clip Pharmaceuticals Inc. co-owned by University License Equity Holdings Inc., Newell, her son Evan Newell, UCCS associate biology professor Robert Melamede and Los Angeles patent attorney Robert Berliner.

Newell’s UCCS lab will receive $25,000 per quarter to complete the research into how and why the compound works. If that research is successful, Viral Genetics plans to spend up to $600,000 to complete independent tests that will verify what Newell determines about VGV-1.

Upon successful completion of her research, Viral Genetics will acquire all of V-Clip for 18.5 million shares of its stock plus options and warrants to buy an additional 31.5 million shares. Viral Genetics stock closed at 3.4 cents in over-thecounter trading Monday.

“Dr. Newell’s basic scientific research and discoveries appear to compliment (sic) the over 10 years of human clinical experience we have,” Viral Genetics co-founder and President Haig Keledjian said in a news release. “The acquisition of these rights holds significant promise to finally” determine exactly how and why the compound works.

Keledjian and Dr. Harry Zhabilov began researching thymus nuclear protein in 1992 for early detection of HIV and cancer and founded the company in 1995. The company conducted its first human trial that year and went public in 2001. Zhabilov died in 2002.

Newell said the agreement came together quickly after a chance meeting in May with Monica Ord, senior vice president of corporate development and communications for Viral Genetics. Newell said they quickly discovered they were working on complementary research.

“We not only want to show how and why the compound works, but also improve the product so that it works on all of the patients rather than just some of them,” Newell said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com