Clinical development of candidate HIV vaccines: different problems for different vaccines

Realization of individual and public health benefit from an HIV vaccine requires clinical testing to demonstrate efficacy. To facilitate clinical testing, preclinical HIV vaccine developers should consider the realities of clinical practice and the conduct of clinical trials in product design. There are several essentially different approaches to prophylactic HIV vaccine design: (1) induce immunity that allows infection but reduces initial peak viremia and viral load set point; (2) induce immunity that allows infection but controls viremia to below the level of detection; (3) induce immunity that allows infection but promotes viral clearance before disease (classic vaccine approach); (4) induce "sterilizing immunity" that prevents acquisition of infection. Each approach presents different challenges for clinical product development. Current clinical trial practices and evolving treatment standards may make it infeasible to perform an efficacy trial of a preventive vaccine that only modestly reduces viremia. A vaccine that promotes control of viremia to below the level of detection is testable but will require extended follow-up to determine how long virus control persists; once control is lost boosting with the same vaccine may not be useful. A vaccine that permits infection but promotes subsequent complete clearance of the virus from the body will require the development and validation of an effective assay for virus clearance. A vaccine that prevents acquisition of infection is the most straightforward to test in the clinic, but escalating costs require more attention by vaccine developers to understanding how the vaccine works and the breadth of protection. All types of vaccine require attention to effect size to ensure adequate powering of efficacy trials.