Sangamo BioSciences Presents Clinical Data from ZFN Therapeutic for HIV/AIDS

Sangamo BioSciences (NASDAQ: SGMO) announced that data from its Phase 1 clinical programs to develop SB-728-T, a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, were discussed in two presentations at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. The meeting is being held in Chicago from September 17-20, 2011. "The data obtained in our treatment interruption studies are very exciting and represent significant progress toward a 'functional cure' for HIV/AIDS," said Carl June, M.D., Director of Translational Research at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who with Pablo Tebas, M.D., is an investigator in the Phase 1 studies of SB-728-T at that institution. "The statistically significant relationship between estimated modification of both copies of the CCR5 gene and viral load during the treatment interruption suggests that the next step is to increase the frequency of the modified cells in HIV-infected patients with the ultimate hope that if we do, we will achieve a 'functional cure' and eliminate the need for continued HAART."In an oral presentation made on Saturday, September 17th at ICAAC, data were presented from all dosing cohorts of Sangamo's Phase 1 dose escalation study (SB-728-902) in subjects on highly active antiretroviral therapy who entered the study with CD4+ T-cells counts of <500 cells/mm3 after several years of therapy ("immunologic non-responders"). A presentation made today described data from the second cohort of a Phase 1 clinical study of the same drug, conducted at the University of Pennsylvania and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in subjects who entered the study with CD4+ T-cell counts of >450 cells/mm3 and underwent a treatment interruption of HAART following treatment with SB-728-T.