Cancer Vaccine - Method

Method

One approach to cancer vaccination is to separate proteins from cancer cells and immunize cancer patients against those proteins, in the hope of stimulating an immune reaction that would kill the cancer cells. Therapeutic cancer vaccines are being developed for the treatment of breast, lung, colon, skin, kidney, prostate, and other cancers.

In a phase III trial of follicular lymphoma (a type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma), investigators reported that the BiovaxID prolonged remission by 44.2 mo, versus 30.6 mo for the control, at the June 2009 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

On April 14, 2009, Dendreon Corporation announced that their Phase III clinical trial of Provenge, a cancer vaccine designed to treat prostate cancer, had demonstrated an increase in survival. It received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for use in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer patients on April 29, 2010. The approval of Provenge has stimulated interest in this type of therapy.

Another approach to therapeutic anti-cancer vaccination is to generate the immune response in situ in the patient. This approach has been successful used by BioVex Inc, Woburn, MA with their product OncoVEX GM-CSF. OncoVEX GM-CSF is a version of herpes simplex virus which has been engineered to replicate selectively in tumor tissue and also to express the immune stimulatory protein GM-CSF. This enhances the anti-tumor immune response to tumor antigens released following lytic virus replication providing an in situ, patient specific anti-tumor vaccine as a result. This is currently in Phase 3 trials in melanoma and head and neck cancer following a very high degree of efficacy having been observed in Phase 2 trials. BioVex was purchased by Amgen Inc for $1 billion in January 2011.

On April 8, 2008, New York-based company Antigenics announced that it had received approval for the first therapeutic cancer vaccine in Russia. It is the first approval by a regulatory body of a cancer immunotherapy. The treatment, Oncophage, increased recurrence-free survival by a little more than a year according to the results of a phase III clinical trial. The approval is for a subset of kidney cancer patients who are at intermediate risk for disease recurrence. It awaits approval in the US and EU. but will need a new trial for FDA approval.

Most of the cancer vaccines in development are addressing specific cancer types and are therapeutic vaccines. Several cancer vaccines are currently in development by companies such as:

• Advaxis (ADXS11-001, ADXS31-001, ADXS31-164)
• ALVAC-CEA vaccine
• Avax Technologies
• Accentia Biopharmaceuticals majority owned subsidiary Biovest International (BiovaxID in phase III)
• BN ImmunoTherapeutics (PROSTVAC)
• Celldex Therapeutics (CDX110, CDX1307 and CDX1401)
• The Center of Molecular Immunology, based in Cuba, has produced CimaVax-EGF, which targets lung cancer
• Dendreon Corp (DNDN) (Neuvenge, for HER2/neu expressing cancers such as Breast, Bladder, colon, Ovarian),
• Galena Biopharma (NeuVax)
• Generex Biotechnology through its wholly owned immunotherapeutic subsidiary Antigen Express (Ae-37)
• Geron Corporation (GRNVAC1)
• GlaxoSmithKline is working on a vaccine for melanoma targeting MAGE-A3
• GlobeImmune (Tarmogens, GI-4000, GI-6207, GI-6301)
• Heat Biologics ImPACT Therapy against NSCLC and other cancers
• Immatics biotechnologies (e.g. IMA901 for renal cancer)
• Merck, in 2009, is starting phase III trials of Stimuvax for breast cancer. It had promising results from a phase IIB trial for inoperable lung cancer.
• Oncotherapy Science (The first world peptide vaccines are produced. Some of vaccines are now in phase 2&3)
• Panacela Labs, Inc. a Cleveland Biolabs (CBLI) Subsidiary: MOBILAN Adenovirus-based treatment inducing immune response. Ready for final stage of preclinical development.
• Prima BioMed LTD - Cvac, therapy against ovarian cancer in phase III.)
• Scancell Holdings, (SCIB1)