Vaccibody AS, a clinical stage company focused on developing personalized neoepitope cancer vaccines to target solid tumors, today announces pre-clinical data supporting elicitation of strong killer T cell responses (CD8+ T cells) towards cancer neoantigens. The executive management is present at JP Morgan in San Francisco this week and will present the new data.
The Vaccibody vaccine technology has previously shown an ability to induce rapid, strong and long-lasting immune responses to neoepitopes translating into highly effective anti-tumor efficacy in mice models. This strongly supports the scientific rationale for the upcoming clinical neoantigen trial which is planned to start recruiting patients Q1 2018. In this trial, individualized neoantigen vaccines will be tested in patients with advanced cancer within the following five indications; melanoma, NSCLC, HNSCC, renal and urothelial cancer in combination with checkpoint inhibitors.
To further substantiate the potential in the Vaccibody vaccine platform technology, the immune response induced by neoantigen vaccines has been investigated in mice models in more detail. The results clearly suggest that Vaccibody neoantigen vaccines are able to induce a broader immune response to the neoepitopes than when these epitopes are delivered to mice in peptide or RNA vaccine formats. Most importantly and highly encouraging, the T cell response consisted of a sound balance between CD8+ killer T cells and CD4+ helper T cell responses with half of the neoepitopes inducing dominant CD8+ T cell responses.
The data thus strongly argues for the ability of the Vaccibody DNA vaccine platform to induce a much stronger CD8+ killer T cell response to neoepitopes than other published vaccination technologies without losing the added help from the CD4 helper T cells.
Agnete Fredriksen, PhD, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Vaccibody, said, “We are delighted that we now can present strong immune responses where a broad and predominately CD8+ killer T cell response is activated. The new data clearly shows the ability of the Vaccibody vaccine technology to elicit strong CD8 killer T cell responses, in addition to CD4+ helper T cell responses. As such, our vaccine technology clearly differentiates from peptide and RNA vaccine delivery platforms which have resulted in limited CD8+ killer T cell responses in both the same preclinical models as well as in the published clinical studies. We know that CD8+ T cells have the potential to directly kill cancer cells and we look forward to see the clinical translation of these promising pre-clinical data in our neoantigen clinical trial which is planned to start recruiting patients Q1 2018”.
About Vaccibody AS
Vaccibody is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel immunotherapies. Vaccibody is a leader in the rapidly developing field of individualized cancer neoantigen vaccines and is using the Vaccibody technology to generate best-in-class therapeutics to treat cancers with a high unmet medical need. Vaccibody’s front runner program (VB10.16) is a therapeutic DNA vaccine against HPV16 induced pre-malignancies and malignancies. The first-in-human study (phase I/IIa), which is now fully enrolled, evaluates the safety and immunogenicity of VB10.16 in women with high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (HSIL; CIN 2/3).
Contact:
Martin Bonde CEO
+47 22958193
SOURCE
Vaccibody AS
Oslo Research Park
Gaustadalléen 21
0349 Oslo, Norway
