Vaccine to help quit Smoking

Despite the known health risks, people continue to smoke and use tobacco primarily as a result of their addiction to nicotine. There is a well known fact that use of tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death and disabilities worldwide and nicotine is the main substance responsible for the addiction to tobacco. Most of the smokers who try to quit on their own fail on the long term.

Even different types of counseling and behavioral therapies can increase abstinence rates but can not tatally eliminate the habit. Similarly, pharmacotherapies prescribed in smoking cessation interventions, such as nicotine replacement products, bupropion and the recently approved varenicline, help smokers quit, but to a certain extent.

Consequently, there is a felt need perceived by the scientific community for alternative and improved treatments. Recently one novel approach is tried as immunization against nicotine. A candidate vaccine against nicotine has been developed based on a virus-like particle (VLP)-nicotine conjugate and have been studied in a randomized controlled trial for the smoking ceastion.

In a phase I study 32 healthy non-smokers were immunized with the Nicotine-Qβ vaccine at doses of 50 µg and 100 µg in presence or absence of Alum, one of the adjuvants approved for use in humans. A single injection induced an anti-nicotine response in 100% of subjects, antibody levels were boosted by either a second injection or by the addition of Alum, and the vaccine was well tolerated.

Based on these encouraging results, an exploratory phase II randomized trial were conducted on smokers who were ready to quit. A vaccine against nicotine was tested in a 6-month randomized, double blind phase II smoking cessation study in 341 smokers with a subsequent 6-month follow-up period. As per the report a significant success have been achieved. However, the safety analysis and effectiveness has to be studied on a larger group to ascertain evidence of efficacy and adverse events which are keys for vaccine to be approved by regulatory authority to be used by the consumer.

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