Cancer vaccines Therapeutic vaccines represent a completely new and different way of attacking a tumour.
French biotech firm Transgene is just one of a number of companies exploring this cutting-edge area of medical science. It is preparing to launch late-stage trials of its new lung cancer vaccine candidate, TG4010. The drug is being tested in combination with chemotherapy in patients with advanced MUC1-expressing NSCLC and with normal levels of activated Natural Killer (aNK) cells.
The drug uses the Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector for vaccination, a weakened strain of the poxvirus that has been tested as a smallpox vaccine and has shown in studies to stimulate an immune response to antigens.
MUC1 is a tumour-associated antigen that provides a viable target for the TG4010 as it has the potential to generate an immune response to ?attack? the cancer.
It is believed that around 60% of this group over-express MUC1, making it more effective for larger populations for those new treatments such as crizotinib that can only help around 6% of NSCLC patients.
This is still a new area, and the only cancer vaccine to date to make it to the market has been Dendreon?s prostate cancer drug Provenge that received FDA approval in May, but it represents a different method of tackling NSCLC and a further option for patients.
These therapeutic vaccines work by teaching the patient?s immune system to recognise and destroy the tumour.
The first ever cancer vaccine, Provenge for prostate cancer, is already available in the US. Transgene is hoping to follow suit with its own NSCLC vaccine TG410 that works by provoking a full body immune response killing cancer cells expressing the target tumour antigen, MUC-1.
Shaun Brown, director of communications at Transgene told me that around two-thirds of stage IV NSCLC patients are eligible to be treated with the vaccine.
Brown says TG410 was different to Iressa and Tarceva as first, it is a biological product, whereas the others are small chemical entities but second, TG4010 can be ?complementary and synergistic to the two other drugs?, opening up the potential to combine treatments and extend survival.
It uses the patient?s own immune system to fight the tumour. ?This therapeutic approach also offers a unique opportunity to be combined with classical surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and current targeted cancer drugs,? Brown added.
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