Aviron Appoints C. Jo White, M.D. as Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs

In this position, Dr. White will lead the team responsible for gaining government approval to market the company's innovative nasal spray vaccine to protect against influenza. Aviron intends to file a Product License Application (PLA) for the vaccine with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in mid-1998.

Dr. White spent almost eight years at Merck Research Laboratories where, under her direction, the company obtained approval for the first and only varicella (chicken pox) vaccine in the United States. The company also obtained recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Based on these recommendations, this vaccine is now routinely given during childhood immunization, and to adults who are susceptible to the disease.

In addition to varicella research, Dr. White's responsibilities at Merck included planning and supervising clinical vaccine development programs in hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, polynucleotide influenza, measles-mumps-rubella-varicella and papilloma virus. Most recently, Dr. White had been Vice President of Clinical Development at North American Vaccine, where she was in charge of numerous pediatric vaccine projects.

Dr. White got her start in clinical trial research during the 1980s while studying patients with HIV and other immune deficiencies at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since then, as a Clinical Research Consultant, she has helped numerous biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with the clinical development and commercialization of viral vaccines.

"The addition of Jo White to our senior management team provides Aviron with the additional perspective of someone who has seen the vaccine approval process through to a successful conclusion. Also very important is her experience in obtaining ACIP and medical society recommendations for routine chicken pox immunization, given our plans for the nasal spray influenza vaccine," said J. Leighton Read, M.D., Chairman and CEO of Aviron.

Data from a Phase III pivotal trial released in July by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Aviron scientists showed a 93% protection rate against influenza in children. A large trial to determine whether administration of the vaccine reduces health care costs and absenteeism due to influenza disease is planned in healthy working adults for this fall. Aviron hopes to have the cold adapted influenza vaccine available for widespread use in vaccination campaigns in 1999.

Aviron is an emerging biopharmaceutical company whose strategy is to focus on the prevention of disease. The Company's goal is to develop vaccines to prevent a wide range of viral infections that affect the general population, providing a cost-effective means of addressing a number of major diseases. In addition to the nasal spray influenza vaccine, Aviron is developing vaccines against parainfluenza (PIV-3), cytomegalovirus (CMV), genital herpes (HSV-2) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Edited by Nick Basta