Clinical Trial for Plague Vaccine Candidate is Announced

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Computer Sciences Corporation today announced that DVC LLC, a CSC company, has entered into a phase 1 clinical trial for its recombinant plague vaccine candidate.

The trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the

vaccine candidate in healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 40.

Testing is underway and will continue into 2005 at the University of Kentucky

Chandler Medical Center in Lexington, Ky.  Contract research services for the

single center open-label study will be provided by the Covalent Group Inc., headquartered in Wayne, Penn.

The plague vaccine candidate is designed to provide protection against the

plague bacterium Yersinia pestis, and was originally identified and developed

by scientists working at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of

Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).  Their work involved the identification of

suitable protein antigens and the development of the processes used to assess

the performance of the vaccine.  Further development and manufacture of the

vaccine candidate has been achieved by ID Biomedical Corporation, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, under the DVC prime systems contract for the Department of Defense Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program (JVAP).

JVAP's mission is to develop, produce and stockpile FDA-licensed vaccine

products to help protect the warfighter against biological warfare agents.

JVAP consolidates the Department of Defense's efforts for the advanced

development, testing, FDA licensing, production and storage of biological

defense vaccines.

USAMRIID, located at Fort Detrick, Md., is the lead medical research

laboratory for the U.S. Biological Defense Research Program, and plays a key

role in national defense and in infectious disease research.  The Institute's

mission is to conduct basic and applied research on biological threats

resulting in medical solutions (such as vaccines, drugs and diagnostics) to

protect the warfighter.  USAMRIID is a subordinate laboratory of the U.S. Army

Medical Research and Materiel Command.

DVC is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development and

licensure of safe and efficacious biodefense vaccines and therapeutics.  DVC

is part of CSC's Enforcement, Security and Intelligence organization, which

CSC created in 2002 to support programs enhancing U.S. security.

Founded in 1959, Computer Sciences Corporation is a leading global

information technology (IT) services company.  CSC's mission is to provide

customers in industry and government with solutions crafted to meet their

specific challenges and enable them to profit from the advanced use of

technology.

Source: Computer Sciences Corporation