Reading the tea leaves, page-2

Why are cancer vaccines which were long considered failures, hot again? The article Vaccines for established cancer: Overcoming the challenges posed by immune evasion, published in March 2016, provides compelling answers. Essentially, vaccines failed as a monotherapy but will find their place in combination therapies.

The use of chemotherapy and/or checkpoint inhibitors remodel the cancer micro environment in overcoming the challenges of immune evasion and immune suppression. The authors concluded that standard of care chemotherapy treatments in combination with vaccines will likely be the first to improve the clinical effects of therapeutic vaccines.

It is no accident that the Phase 1b and the proposed Phase 2 use a combination of HER-Vaxx and chemotherapy. It may also be unsurprising that the Phase 1 in breast cancer was used as a single agent with no chemo. The HER-Vaxx formulation has been improved and this time around it is being trialled in combination with standard of care chemotherapy. Therein lies the excitement not only about immunogenicity but also patient benefit.