to protect the integrity of the trial. study participants had a marked decrease in viral lesions (outbreaks) with a drop of over 90% in the monthly rate versus baseline. the average number of days hsv-2 was detected in patients was reduced versus baseline. on 19 october 2016, admedus released interim results from the ongoing hsv-2 phase iia study. the unblinded data demonstrated a 58% reduction in viral shedding compared to baseline and a reduction in outbreaks of 52% post vaccination and 81% overall reduction post-booster. on 1 june 2020, admedus announced it had changed its name to anteris technologies ltd., and would become a "dedicated structural heart company". no vaccines are listed in the company's most recent research report and the vaccine is likely discontinued. other vaccine exploration vitaherpavac - in patients with monotonously recurrent genital herpes infection and history of failure of standard vaccination, anti-relapse efficacy of vitaherpavac vaccine was demonstrated after allergometry-based tailored choice of vaccine administration regimen. the used approach was associated with lower antigenic load and sensitization, more than three-fold increase in relapse-free period in 85% of treated patients and improvement of th1-dependent immunity. the russian vaccine vitagerpavak — the only polyvalent vaccine in the world for treatment of the chronic gerpesvirusny infection (cgi) і and іі types. it is developed in scientific research institute of virology of d.i. ivanovsky of the russian academy of medical science. more than 15 years are applied in the russian federation. a study from the albert einstein college of medicine, where glycoprotein d (gd-2) was deleted from the herpes cell, showed positive results when tested in mice. researchers deleted gd-2 from the herpes virus, which is responsible for herpes microbes entering in and out of cells. the vaccine is still in early stages of development and more research needs to be conducted before receiving fda approval for clinical trials. research conducted by the nanobio corporation indicates that an enhanced protection from hsv-2 is a result of mucosal immunity which can be elicited by their intranasal nanoemulsion vaccine. nanobio published results showing efficiency in studies conducted in both the prophylactic and the therapeutic guinea pig model. this included preventing infection and viral latency in 92% of animals vaccinated and a reduction in recurrent legions by 64% and viral shedding by 53%. nanobio hopes to raise funds in 2016 to enter into phase i clinical testing. profectus biosciences intends to use its pbs vax therapeutic vaccine technology to engineer a vaccine for hsv-2. the vaccine is in early development and much is unknown about its viability. biomedical research models, a worcester-based biopharmaceutical company has been awarded a fund for the development of a novel vaccine platform to combat mucosally transmitted pathogens such as hsv-2. the company tomegavax (recently acquired by vir biotechnology) is researching to utilize cytomegalovirus vectors in the development of a therapeutic vaccine against herpes simplex virus 2 (hsv-2), the causative agent of genital herpes. it has been awarded a grant by the nih for this purpose. redbiotec, a privately held swiss biopharmaceutical company, based in zurich as a spin-off of the eth zurich, is focusing on the development of a therapeutic vaccine against hsv-2. redbiotec's preclinical vaccine shows over 90% of lesion score (vs. approx. 50% for gen-003 of genocea) in early findings. sanofi pasteur and the clinical-stage immunotherapy company immune design have entered a broad collaboration, which will explore the potential of various combinations of agents against hsv-2, including an adjuvanted trivalent vaccine candidate g103, consisting of recombinantly-expressed viral proteins. discontinued vaccines below is a list of vaccines that are no longer being pursued. vaccine organization vaccine type reason final results herpevac, simplirix glaxosmithkline prophylactic, sub unit gd2t with alum/mpl adjuvant as04 failed in phase iii clinical trial no statistically significant results found no effect regarding hsv-2 was achieved, partial protection against hsv-1 confirmed unnamed paxvax recombinant vector vaccine discontinued in pre-clinical stage, no longer appears in company's pipeline n/a immunovex hsv2 vaccine amgen, biovex live, attenuated, defective in immune evasion discontinued in phase i stage, no longer appears in company's pipeline n/a gen-003 genocea sub unit gd2/icp4 with matrix m2 adjuvant discontinued after phase ii stage 58% reduction in viral shedding, 69% reduction in outbreaks. spending on vaccine has ceased. aurx herpes vaccine aurx recombinant vector vaccine inactive n/a disc vaccine cantab pharmaceuticals live, attenuated hsv vaccine with gh deleted discontinued in phase i stage no clinical or virological benefit was shown unnamed mymetics ? discontinued in pre-clinical stage, no longer appears in company's pipeline n/a herpv agenus peptide vaccine/qs-21 adjuvant discontinued after phase ii stage n/a vcl-hb01 vical dna vaccine: gd2+ul46/vaxfectin adjuvant discontinued after phase ii stage trial did not show positive outcome. detailed information on discontinued vaccines one vaccine that was under trial was herpevac, a vaccine against hsv-2. the national institutes of health (nih) in the united states conducted phase iii trials of herpevac. in 2010, it was reported that, after 8 years of study in more than 8,000 women in the united states and canada, there was no sign of positive results against the sexually transmitted disease caused by hsv-2 (and this despite earlier favorable interim reports). paxvax, a specialty vaccine company, partnered with spector lab at the uc san diego department of cellular and molecular medicine regarding the development of a genital herpes viral vector vaccine. the vaccine was in the pre-clinical stage. the vaccine is no longer listed on their website as a present endeavour and has likely been discontinued. a private company called biovex began phase i clinical trials for immunovex, another proposed vaccine, in march 2010. the company had commenced clinical testing in the uk with its vaccine candidate for the prevention and potentially the treatment of genital herpes. the biopharmaceutical company amgen bought biovex and their proposed immunovex vaccine appears to have been discontinued, furthermore it has been removed from the company's research pipeline. a live, attenuated vaccine (which was proven very effective in clinical trials in mexico) by the company aurx has failed to proceed to a phase iii trial in the year 2006, due to financial reasons. the aurx therapy was shown to be safe and decrease the occurrence of lesions by 86% after one year. mymetics is developing a pre-clinical preventative vaccine for hsv 1 and 2 using its virosome technology. there has not been any recent announcement by the company regarding their vaccine, which seems to have been taken off from the company's research product pipeline. herpv, a genital herpes vaccine candidate manufactured by the company agenus, announced phase ii clinical trial results in june 2014. results showed up to a 75% reduction in viral load and a weak reduction in viral shedding by 14%. these results were achieved after a series of vaccinations and a booster dose after six months, signalling the vaccine may take time to become effective. further testing results are to show if the vaccine is a viable candidate against genital herpes. there has not been any recent announcement by agenus regarding the vaccine herpv, which seems to have been taken off from the company's research product pipeline. genocea biosciences has developed gen-003, a first-in-class protein subunit t cell-enabled therapeutic vaccine, or immunotherapy, designed to reduce the duration and severity of clinical symptoms associated with moderate-to-severe hsv-2, and to control transmission of the infection. gen-003 includes the antigens icp4 and gd2, as well as the proprietary adjuvant matrix-m. gen-003 had concluded phase iia clinical trials. in december 2015, genocea announced interim data showing a 58% decrease in viral shedding and a 69% decrease in genital lesions. they also showed one of the doses stopped outbreaks for at least 6 months. gen-003 was undergoing a phase iib clinical trial in the united states. genocea has announced it would shift their strategic efforts to cancer vaccines while at the same time heavily cutting down on research and development of gen-003 vaccine against genital herpes. being unable to secure funding or partnering with another company, genocea's further vaccine development remains to be determined. vical had been awarded grant funding from the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases division of the nih to develop a plasmid dna-based vaccine to inhibit recurring lesions in patients latently infected with herpes simplex virus type 2 (hsv-2). the plasmid dna encoding the hsv-2 antigens was formulated with vaxfectin, vical's proprietary cationic lipid adjuvant. vical is concluding phase i clinical trials, while reporting data showing the vaccine candidate failed to meet the primary endpoint. the san diego-based company was forced to concede that their herpes strategy had misfired, with their vaccine failing to perform as well as a placebo. however, that seemed to may have changed, since 20 june 2016, when vical released phase i/ii results at asm. their vaccine (named vcl-hb01) was involved in a phase ii clinical trial. the recent trial, similarly to a past trial again missed the primary endpoint and therefore the company is discontinuing the vaccine and moving to other pipeline products. genome editing another area of research for hsv treatment or a potential cure is the use of genome editing. it is thought that by cleaving the dna of hsv that infects neurons, thereby causing destruction or mutational inactivation of the hsv dna, the virus can be greatly treated or even cured. notable research the jerome lab run by keith r. jerome at the fred hutchinson cancer research center has looked at using zinc finger nuclease as well as endonuclease to prevent hsv from replicating. most recently jerome and his lab were able to demonstrate cleavage of latent hsv in a living organism, which is vital to disabling the virus. on august 18, 2020, the team led by jerome and martine aubert published a paper in nature communications showing that, through a series of incremental improvements on their original method, they had destroyed up to 95% of herpes virus lurking in certain nerve clusters of mice, with 3 years of work expected before clinical trials are considered. editas medicine, that previously collaborated with the cullen lab, are researching crispr-cas9 for its use in herpes simplex keratitis. researchers at temple university have been researching how to disrupt hsv from replicating that could eventually lead to a cure. some members of research team at temple university have also joined forces to create excision biotherapeutics. the company intends to begin clinical trials in 2022. researchers at the university medical center utrecht, using the crispr-cas9 system, have showed promising results in clearing hsv-1 infection by simultaneously targeting multiple essential vital genes in vitro. the researchers are now looking at targeting latent hsv-1 genomes and are investigating in vivo model systems to assess the potential therapeutic application. in 2021, scientists in china described a crispr-cas9 genome editing approach which could be used to treat hsv-1 in corneal stroma: injection of engineered lentiviruses into the affected anatomical regions for transient editing without inducing off-target edits. herpes simplex pharmaceutical drugs a research paper providing an overview of the relatively recent state of research can be found on this page. pharmaceutical drugs docosanol is a topical cream approved by the fda for reducing the outbreak time for oral blisters. since the introduction of the nucleoside analogs decades ago, treatment of herpes simplex virus (hsv) infections has not seen much innovation, except for the development of their respective prodrugs (aciclovir, famciclovir, valacilovir..). drawbacks such as poor bioavailability or limited effectiveness of these drugs require further research effort of new pharmaceutical drugs against the herpes simplex disease. the inhibitors of the helicase-primase complex of hsv represent a very innovative approach to the treatment of herpesvirus disease. pharmaceutical drug company lead researcher type status aciclovir patents expired schaeffer & b. elion nucleic acid analogue in production valaciclovir patents expired ? nucleic acid analogue in production famciclovir patents expired ? nucleic acid analogue in production pritelivir aicuris ? helicase-primase inhibitor phase iii amenamevir astellas pharma inc kiyomitsu katsumata helicase-primase inhibitor in production bx795 ? deepak shukla kinase inhibitor preclinical sadbe squarex, llc hugh mctavish, phd, jd topical solution; immunological adjuvant phase ii notable progress researchers have made a hammerhead ribozyme that targets and cleaves the mrna of essential genes in hsv-1. the hammerhead, which targets the mrna of the ul20 gene, greatly reduced the level of hsv-1 ocular infection in rabbits, and reduced the viral yield in vivo. the gene-targeting approach uses