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Smokers 'could soon get jab to halt their addiction'  

Smokers could soon break their habit with a jab that stops nicotine from being addictive by preventing it from entering the brain, scientists claimed.

As a result the vaccine stops the smoker from deriving any pleasure from inhaling a cigarette. In human trials the vaccine proved successful in 50 per cent of cases.

Help: Smokers could quit using the vaccine that stops nicotine entering the brain

This would help relieve the NHS of the heavy burden of tobacco-related diseases. . . .

The product, called NicVAX is likely to open a new front in the tobacco wars.

They are many products currently on the market to help people quit smoking such as nicotine patches, and gum.

But many of the existing smoking cessation products are failing to prevent many people from returning to their tobacco habits.

NicVAX is the first product that prevents smokers from returning to their habit with others just stopping their immediate tobacco use.

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Vaccine for smokers draws closer as GSK agrees US biotech deal 

Smokers may soon be able to break their habit with an injectable vaccine that prevents nicotine in tobacco entering the brain, where it creates a highly addictive sensation of pleasure.

The NicVAX vaccine moved closer to the market yesterday after a deal between GlaxoSmithKline and the US biotech company Nabi Pharmaceuticals, which developed the product.

GSK will pay $40m (£24m) up front and as much as $500m in the future to Nabiat a time of growing concern over the heavy burden of tobacco-related diseases as one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

The product potentially opens a new front in the tobacco wars, with most existing so-called smoking cessation products and methods failing to prevent many people from returning to their tobacco habits.

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Nabi/GlaxoSmithKline: deal reignites confidence in nicotine vaccine approach 

In securing GlaxoSmithKline's signature, Nabi Biopharmaceuticals has gained the perfect Big Pharma partner to support its NicVAX program. Although Phase III development remains Nabi's responsibility, it provides a timely boost to the validity of the approach, following the recent set-back experienced by Novartis and Cytos with their own nicotine vaccine, NIC-002.

Under a global option and licensing agreement, GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay Nabi an upfront non-refundable fee of $40m for NicVAX, an investigational vaccine for the treatment of nicotine addiction and the prevention of smoking relapse, while also receiving an option to develop a second-generation nicotine vaccine using Nabi's intellectual property. Nabi will continue to be responsible for the costs of the Phase III development, while upon successful completion, GSK will take responsibility for further development and commercialization of NicVAX.

In a move away from traditional nicotine replacement and agonist therapies, nicotine vaccines are the most prevalent drug class in the late-stage nicotine dependence pipeline. A

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Price of Not Smoking - $500M; Nabi, GSK in NicVax Partnership 

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, the first firm ever to enter Phase III testing of an antinicotine vaccine, inked a deal potentially worth $500 million, including $40 million up front, granting GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals a worldwide option to exclusively in-license NicVAX and develop follow-on next-generation nicotine vaccines using Nabi's intellectual property.

Investors reacted Monday by pushing shares of Rockville, Md.-based Nabi (NASDAQ:NABI) up 26.4 percent, or 94 cents, to close at $4.50.

Nabi CEO Raafat Fahim said the partnership not only gives his company a financial boost, but "it gives us also the respect and prestige that comes with not just any big pharma, but the right big pharma for this product."

Nabi recently received a $10 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to fund the first of two Phase III studies, which got under way earlier this month, testing NicVAX as a treatment for nicotine addiction and as a therapy to prevent smoking relapse. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 4, 2009.)

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Nabi Biopharmaceuticals to Hold Conference Call 

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq:NABI) today announced that it will host a live webcast and conference call at 11:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, November 17 to discuss today's announcement of the exclusive worldwide option and licensing agreement for NicVAX(R), a nicotine conjugate candidate vaccine, between GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA and Nabi Biopharmaceuticals.

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Glaxo-Nabi deal draws nicotine vaccine for smokers a step closer 

Smoking addicts may be able to inject themselves in a few years with a vaccine to help fight their nicotine habit, following a deal between GlaxoSmithKline and biotech company Nabi Pharmaceuticals sealed yesterday.

GSK will pay $40m (€26.7m) up front and as much as $500m in the future to Nabi, which is based in Rockville, Maryland, as it tries to develop and launch the world's first anti-smoking vaccine.

The deal marks a fresh move by large pharmaceutical companies to expand their interest in vaccines, at a time of growing concern over the heavy disease burden of tobacco as one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

It also signals the need for fresh ways to tackle smoking, with most existing "smoking cessation" products and approaches failing to persuade smokers to keep off nicotine for long.

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Smokers 'could soon get jab to halt their addiction'  

Smokers could soon break their habit with a jab that stops nicotine from being addictive by preventing it from entering the brain, scientists claimed.

As a result the vaccine stops the smoker from deriving any pleasure from inhaling a cigarette. In human trials the vaccine proved successful in 50 per cent of cases.

This would help relieve the NHS of the heavy burden of tobacco-related diseases.

Smoking is believed to cost the NHS between £1.4billion and £1.7billion a year, according to the Centre for Health Economics, University of York.

And yesterday it was announced that the jab has moved one stop closer to hitting the market after pharmaceutical giant Glaxo-SmithKline made a deal with its developer Nabi Pharmaceuticals. . . .

Jean Stephanie, president of GSK’s Biological Divisions, told the Financial Times: ‘If approved, this.... technology could be a novel solution to help the millions of smokers who want to stop smoking and remain abstinent; a habit that is well documented to be very hard to stop permanently.’

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• Nabi makes deal for smoking vaccine 

The Rockville maker of an experimental nicotine vaccine has signed a licensing deal with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline that could produce a huge payday if the anti-smoking drug can be successfully brought to market.

Nabi Bioparmaceuticals outlined the terms of the deal Monday. It said a unit of GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $40 million initially for the exclusive worldwide licensing rights to the drug, called NicVax.

Nabi would receive additional money if it meets certain developmental and regulatory milestones, including the development of follow-up nicotine vaccines. Nabi would also earn double-digit royalties from sales if the product reaches the market.

All told, Nabi could collect more than $500 million from the development and sale of the vaccine and its successors, the company said.

"It's the biggest deal we've ever had," said Raafat Fahim, Nabi's president and chief executive. He added that NicVax would become the company's flagship product if it successfully passes final rounds of testing.

Nabi says its vaccine causes a body's immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine molecules, making them too large to reach the brain's receptors.

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A new study compares smoking cessation therapies  

If you're trying to quit smoking, what's the best approach? A new study from the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention compared six therapies to determine what was most effective. . . .

Dr. Aldo Alamo with Lewis-Gale Physicians said most people who are nicotine addicted will need some kind of help.

The most recent study tested six therapies on 15-hundred adults, who smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day. They also received counseling sessions.

Six months later, the most effective treatment turned out to be the nicotine patch and lozenge combination.

Here is a breakdown of the percentage of people still smoke-free six months out.

Placebo 22.2%

Bupropion 31.8%

Bupropion + lozenge 33.2%

Nicotine Lozenge 33.5%

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‘Vaccine’ helps smoker blow off cigarettes  

Leslie Cook was losing control of her life one cigarette at time, 20 cigarettes a day.

The 53-year-old Boston real estate lawyer spent nearly half her life smoking, and nothing - not patches, gum, gurus or drugs - loosened the grip of nicotine.

"I just felt like it owned me. It controlled me," said Cook, who finally kicked the habit in 2007 with the help of an experimental vaccine called NicVax, which took away the pleasure of nicotine.

"I don't miss it to this day," said Cook, who participated in a clinical trial at Massachusetts General Hospital testing the drug.

Buoyed by the success of the first trial, MGH researchers are looking for more smokers like Cook who are willing to join in the third and final phase of a clinical trial testing the crave-curbing vaccine. Last week, researchers enrolled 50 smokers.

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Study: Anti-smoking vaccine effective 

ORLANDO (AP) -- A shot that robs smokers of the nicotine buzz from cigarettes showed promise in midstage testing and may someday offer a radically new way to kick a dangerous habit.

In a study, more than twice as many people given five of the shots stopped smoking than those given fewer or phony shots . . .

The results, presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association conference, do not prove the new approach works but encouraged some experts.

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The Impact of Repeated Cycles of Pharmacotherapy on Smoking Cessation: A Longitudinal Cohort Study 

Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Smoking cessation pharmacotherapy can double quit rates.1 However, smokers often fail after a single quit attempt, and quitting smoking often involves multiple quit attempts over the course of months or years.2-5 Few studies have tested the impact of providing repeated courses of pharmacotherapy to help smokers recover from relapses and engage in new cessation attempts.6-11 As part of a study of chronic disease management for smoking cessation, we followed a cohort of smokers that was offered up to 4 courses of pharmacotherapy over 2 years. We examined their continued interest in using pharmacotherapy and the effect of that treatment.

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Use of Pharmacotherapy for Smoking Cessation in Italy 

In a cluster-randomized smoking cessation trial conducted in Germany on 577 smokers, cost-free nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or bupropion hydrochloride reduced smoking-related morbidity at low cost.1 This adds to the accumulated evidence that NRT, bupropion, and varenicline tartrate significantly increase cessation rate and are generally well tolerated by smokers.2-3

Using data from 6 population-based surveys conducted in Italy between 2002 and 2007, we showed that pharmacotherapy for smoking cessation was used by less than 10% of smokers who had made at least 1 quit attempt.4 We provide herein updated information on the issue.

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• Trial drug may help smokers kick butts 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* Drug maker given $10 million grant to take anti-nicotine vaccine to Phase III clinical trial

* "Smoker's high" comes from release of dopamine in brain, triggered by nicotine

* NicVAX stimulates immune system to prevent nicotine from entering brain

* In theory, it would help smokers quit for good by reducing pleasure

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Significantly More Smokers With Mild-To-Moderate COPD Quit Smoking Using CHANTIX/CHAMPIX® (Varenicline) Compared With Placebo  

New study results showed that 42.3 percent of smokers with mild-to-moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who took CHANTIX/CHAMPIX® (varenicline) were able to quit smoking and remain abstinent during the last four weeks of treatment (weeks 9-12) compared with 8.8 percent of those given placebo (p<0.0001). These findings were presented by investigators at CHEST 2009, the 75th annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP).

"Quitting smoking is of paramount importance for all smokers, particularly those with a smoking-related illness, such as COPD," said Dr. Donald Tashkin, study investigator, emeritus professor of medicine at University of California, Los Angeles. "This study shows that varenicline is an effective means of smoking cessation for a highly nicotine-dependent, difficult-to-treat group of patients. The safety profile of varenicline in this study was consistent with its pre-approval clinical trials."

Up to one-half of all people who smoke may eventually develop COPD,

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