By: AllPennyStocks.com News

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

In 2008, the most recent year of estimates, the U.S. Center of Disease Control estimated that 1.2 million people in the country are living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV, and Acquired Immune Deficiency Disorder, or AIDS. The two are often measured together as it is HIV that causes AIDS. The CDC also reported that, through 2008, more than 600,000 people had died from the disease since the first case was reported in the U.S. in 1981. While those figures are substantial, in other parts of the world the disease is far more prominent. According to statistics published in November 2011 by UNAIDS, WHO and UNICEF, about 27 million of the 34 million people infected with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2010 lived in Africa, the country were it is widely believed that the disease originated. It’s notable that prevalence of the disease is growing in some regions, such as Eastern Europe and Central China, where the diagnosis rate more than tripled between 2000 and 2010.

Many biotechnology companies are striving to develop new therapeutics for HIV/AIDS to provide more biological- and cost-effective treatments. Looking to establish a footprint in the industry is little Pasadena, California-based Immunotech Laboratories, Inc. (Pink Sheets:IMMB) with its proprietary proteins for treating infectious diseases.

The company’s flagship compound, ITV-1 (Immune Therapeutic Vaccine-1), is a suspension of Inactivated Pepsin Fraction, or IPF, which studies have shown is effective in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. IPF, a purified extract of porcine pepsin, is known to modulate the immune system.

Still in early stages of development of its immunotherapeutic treatments, Immunotech has initially set its sights on HIV/AIDS, although it has said that it intends to pursue other prominent indications, such as cancer, in the future.

In order to control costs and expedite development of ITV-1, the company is taking its initial clinical trials to Bulgary, a country where the father of Immunotech founder and president Harry Zhabilov was a prominent researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The elder Zhabilov was also focused on “manipulating the immune system to fight HIV/AIDS,” according to Zhabilov’s blog on tumblr.com. The Immunotech president seems to have quite a lengthy lineage in the immune system arena.

Whether that will translate to the commercialization of a new therapy is still years away, but it took a step in the right direction with news today that the company has secured $2 million in funding from Bulgarian-based partner Immunotech BG to begin clinical trials in advanced-stage AIDS patients.

50 patients are scheduled to be enrolled in the trials which will be hosted at “two of the largest Bulgarian hospitals” testing the U.S. company’s patented IPF-ITV and IPF-ITV Phases, the company said in today’s statement.

"We believe that in both cases, the results will be very encouraging, as to this point we have already applied the medicine with volunteers and the results have been highly successful in Bulgaria, where the use of the vaccine labeled as an 'Experimental Drug' is permitted,” said Bo Linton, director at Immunotech.

Linton said he believes the clinical trials in Bulgaria, which are only slated to last from March 2013 to August 2013, will provide data that will significantly help the company’s quest for a “Fast Track” designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Shares of IMMB have historically been very thinly traded, but have seen an incremental volume increase over the past two weeks with shares rising from around a dime to as high as 45 cents. Shares have cooled from those highs to be trading on Wednesday at 25 cents, with an intraday high of 32 cents and about 57,000 shares in volume.

Proper due diligence of this developmental biotech is, as always, encouraged.

Copyright © 2013 AllPennyStocks.com. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of AllPennyStocks.com's content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AllPennyStocks.com. AllPennyStocks.com shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.