PowderJect shares rise on HIV hope

PowderJect, the biotechnology company, hit back at critics of its needle-free injection system yesterday with news of progress in developing an HIV vaccination.

Shares rose 17.5p to 462.5p after PowderJect announced that two lots of pre-clinical tests showed the highest ever recorded level of immune response to HIV in cells.

The Oxford-based company saw its shares hit an all-time low of 440p last Friday, after rumours in the City suggested that the company could not repeat its initial progress with the new injection technology. Drugs are delivered in powder form into the skin with a high-speed helium jet.

Eva Haas, biotech analyst at Greig Middleton, said: "Today's announcement will reassure people in the City that said PowderJect were having problems repeating the initial proof of principal data. It means those rumours were probably wrong."

But she stressed that the vaccine's progress was at a very early stage, as the trials deal with the HIV equivalent in monkeys and have not been tested on people.

The system involves giving a subject an injection of non-infectious DNA rather than elements of HIV, the virus that causes Aids.

Schaefer Price, president of PowderJect Vaccines, a subsidiary of PowderJect, said that one of the company's partners would develop the vaccine.

The most likely candidate is Glaxo Wellcome, which has bought five vaccine licences from PowderJect, including one for HIV therapy.