William A. Carter, M.D.

Ampligen® was based on a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) compound developed by the pharmaceutical company, Merck, in the 1960s, as a potential cancer drug. Though effective in the petri dish, the original compound proved to be too toxic for human use. William A. Carter, MD, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, was able to modify the compound in the 1970s to reduce its toxicity. The new compound was named Ampligen®, short for “AMPLIfied GENetic activity.” In the 1980s, while a researcher at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, Dr. Carter obtained the license for the compound from Johns Hopkins University. He and several other researchers at Hahnemann University affiliated with a small company, Hemispherx, now called AIM ImmunoTech, to manufacture it. Through the years, Ampligen has been offered as a treatment for a variety of diseases including cancer, AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, hepatitis C, Gulf War Illness, swine flu, and ebola. Carter was implicated in a class action suit by stockholders in 2013 for securities fraud; notably misrepresenting the efficacy of the drug, its potential for approval by the FDA, and artificially inflating stock prices as result. In Feb 2016, the then Chairman and CEO was terminated by the board of directors. On September 3, 2019, Hemispherx Biopharma was renamed to AIM Immunotech.