Nabi under-staphed

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals says that any one of a number of factors could be responsible for the failure of a second Phase III trial of its StaphVax to prevent S. aureus infections in patients with kidney disease. These include a change in manufacturing between the first and second Phase III studies or the vaccine's antigen - S. aureus polysaccharide capsule. The company maintains that the conjugation technology underlying the vaccine is not an issue, and that the StaphVax failure should not be predictive of results with NABI's other compounds.

NABI's technology uses a linker to attach molecules to a carrier protein, Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin A. In the case of StaphVax, the exotoxin is linked to S. aureus polysaccharide capsule...