Previously doing business as Cytel corporation and receiving award by that name before going public in 1999, in March 2005 Epimmune merged with French company Immuno-Designed Molecules. Epimmune Inc. had been developing therapeutic vaccines that use multiple epitopes, or protein fragments, to specifically activate the body's immune system for the more effective management of infectious diseases and cancer. Epimmune (Nasdaq: EPMN) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of vaccines using multiple epitopes to specifically activate the body's immune system. Epitopes, critical signaling molecules, stimulate the T cell arm of the immune system to respond to specific regions of cancer cells or infectious agents. By combining multiple, selected epitopes into a single vaccine candidate, the immune response can be both targeted and optimized for strength. The Company's vaccine candidate is designed to induce a sufficiently potent immune response so that the patient's immune system can control the virus, allowing the patient to suspend or stop taking antiretroviral drugs that have serious side effects and can induce drug resistance when taken over time.
