SAN DIEGO: Aethlon Medical, Inc. has announced today that treatment data resulting from the administration of Hemopurifier® therapy to a patient infected with Ebola virus will be presented this Friday, November 14th at the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) Annual Meeting.
The treatment data will be presented during an ASN Special Session on Ebola and Dialysis by Professor Helmut Geiger M.D., Chief of Nephrology at Goethe University, Frankfurt University Hospital, where the patient was treated. The data will include the results of patient viral load measurements taken before and after Hemopurifier® administration. Additionally, the quantification of ebola viruses captured within the Hemopurifier® during treatment will be reported. On November 5th, officials at Frankfurt University Hospital disclosed that the treated patient, who was suffering from multiple organ failure, was no longer infected with ebola virus and is expected to make a full recovery.
The ASN Annual Meeting is the world's premier nephrology conference with more than 13,000 medical professionals from across the globe attending this years gathering at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia.
The Aethlon Hemopurifier® is a first-in-class bio-filtration device that targets the rapid elimination of viruses and immunosuppressive proteins from the circulatory system of infected individuals. At present, no antiviral therapy or vaccine has proven to be effective against Ebola virus infection in humans. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 5,000 deaths have been attributed to the current ebola virus epidemic. The patient at Frankfurt University Hospital was administered Hemopurifier® therapy through special approval from The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (Bundesinstitut für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte, BfArM), an independent federal higher authority within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Health of Germany.
In the care of ebola-infected individuals, the Hemopurifier targets two unmet medical needs: the rapid elimination of circulating viruses to inhibit continued progeny virus replication and the direct targeting of secreted glycoproteins that overwhelm the host immune response. The broad-spectrum antiviral and immunotherapeutic device is deployed for use within the global infrastructure of dialysis and CRRT machines already located in hospitals and clinics.
Aethlon is also preparing to initiate the first U.S. clinical studies of Hemopurifier therapy based on the United States Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) that was previously submitted by the Company. The study will contribute safety data to advance the device as a broad-spectrum countermeasure against pandemic threats, including ebola and chronic viral pathogens such as HIV and Hepatitis C (HCV).
To date, Hemopurifier therapy has been successfully administered in approximately one hundred treatment experiences in health compromised HIV and HCV infected individuals. These studies were conducted at the Apollo Hospital, Fortis Hospital, Sigma New Life Hospital, and the Medanta Medicity Institute, all located in India. In vitro validation studies that demonstrated the ability of the Hemopurifier to capture Zaire and other strains of ebola virus have been conducted by researchers at the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In vitro studies conducted by leading government and non-government research organizations have also validated that the Hemopurifier® captures a broad-spectrum of bioterror and pandemic threats. Like ebola virus, many of these threats are not addressed with an effective drug or vaccine. Viruses validated to be captured by the Hemopurifier® include; dengue hemorrhagic virus, lassa hemorrhagic virus, H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu), the reconstructed 1918 influenza virus (r1918), 2009 H1N1 influenza virus (swine flu), West Nile virus, and monkeypox, which serves as a model for human smallpox infection.
In oncology, the Hemopurifier® has been validated to capture tumor-secreted exosomes, which suppress the immune response and contribute to the spread of metastasis in cancer patients. In both oncology and infectious disease indications, the Hemopurifier® can be combined with standard of care therapies as an adjunct strategy to improve patient benefit.