Researchers are investigating whether the same approach used to prevent infectious diseases could treat addictions to such drugs as nicotine and cocaine.
None is yet on the market, but in late September, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) released a $10 million stimulus grant to Nabi Pharmaceuticals to help pay for the first Phase III trial – a large study designed to confirm effectiveness and monitor side effects – of a smoking-cessation vaccine. Company spokesman Greg Fries says Nabi, based in Rockville, Md., expects to begin enrolling patients in the NicVax study by year’s end.
In early October in the Archives of General Psychiatry, scientists reported the results of a cocaine vaccine study, the first successful placebo-controlled trial of a vaccine against an illicit drug of abuse. At a news conference, NIDA director Nora Volkow, whose institute funded the study, called the findings “transformative.”
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