A vaccine for valley fever? SLO company is trying to make it a reality
A San Luis Obispo-based biotechnology company is working to develop a vaccine to treat the life-threatening valley fever disease.
Applied Biotechnology Institute, a private company based at the Cal Poly Technology Park, has tested its vaccine on mice, showing good results, and plans to proceed with human trials, said Dr. John Howard, the founder and president of the company.
Valley fever has contributed to 12 deaths in the county over the past two-and-a-half years, and the number of reported cases have totaled more than 700 the past couple of years, according to the SLO County Public Health Department.
“I’ve known people with valley fever, and the symptoms are really debilitating,” Howard said. “It can be really nasty, and people don’t realize how bad it is until they get it.”
Howard said his team — working in collaboration with biomedical researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Boston and University of Texas, San Antonio — is focused on developing a low-cost, oral vaccine, which also could include injections in the early phases until they can better determine the efficacy of the oral dose.
The goal is eventually to make an effective oral medication without the need for needle injections.
Howard said “assuming funding came through tomorrow, the vaccine is three to five years away” from going on the market. But Howard said the company doesn’t have the money secured yet, which is an estimated $2 to $3 million in funding, so it could take longer.
“That funding will be the hardest part, but I’ve been there before (as a biomedical researcher), and if we can show efficacy I’m very confident we can get the next phase of funding (after the trials),” he said.
The lab has tested the vaccine on mice, and it has proven to be effective thus far.
Applied Biotechnology Institute specializes in work on vaccines and is already much farther along on developing a prevention for Hepatitis B, Howard said.
Valley fever’s scientific name is coccidioidomycosis, or cocci for short.
It’s caused the by the fungus coccidioides that grows in moist soil and can then be spread when the dirt dries and is disturbed later in the year by construction work, agriculture, excavation or other digging.
County Public Health has documented 63 reported SLO County cases of valley fever so far in 2019 with no deaths; in 2018, 316 cases were reported and six people died; in 2017, there were 368 local cases of valley fever with six deaths.
Ann McDowell, a county Public Health epidemiologist, said she’s “absolutely in favor of vaccines to prevent illness.”
“People in certain occupations are more likely to get it because they work in places where they could be more exposed — people in construction, farm workers and wildlife biologists out in the field a lot are among them,” McDowell said. “For people who’s occupation puts them at high risk, getting a vaccine would be a very beneficial thing.”
McDowell said valley fever is located in soil throughout the county, potentially affecting anyone who lives in the area.
More than 60 percent of people who become infected with valley fever do not experience any symptoms and don’t need treatment, but around 30 to 40 percent of people develop sudden flu-like symptoms, according to the department.
Most people will get well withing weeks, but 1 to 5 percent experience spread of the disease throughout the body and risk death.
Those who are at higher risk include people with compromised immune systems (including people with HIV/AIDS, people on chemotherapy and women who are pregnant) and people of African and Asian-Pacific descent.
This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 3:11 PM.
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