Promising cancer vaccine generates worldwide buzz

Posted December 7, 2009, 10:30 am in Treatment

David Mooney’s cancer research was the subject of a recent business journal article. The technology was recently licensed to InCytu, which this year landed $5 million in venture capital.

David Mooney says there was no eureka moment when it occurred to him that the cancer vaccine he had been working on for six years just might work. “We were just optimistic, and felt more and more comfortable as we gathered more data,” he said. The data, showing that he and his team at the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Science had killed tumors in mice with a tiny implantable sponge, have just been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“We’ve gotten calls from all over the world. From companies, from patients hoping this would be available soon,” Mooney said. But this is just the first step in a long regulatory road. The sponge contains a substance that attracts dendritic cells, an important component of the immune system. The sponge also contains an antigen — a trigger that tells the body to create antibodies — made from a tiny, dead sample of the patient’s tumor.

The goal is for the dendritic cells to enter the sponge, scan the fingerprint of the tumor and then go teach T cells — another important illness fighter — to find and attack the tumor. The sponge could be implanted under the skin in a doctor’s office. Patients would likely receive a few implants consecutively, each of which would dissolve within the body in about a month.

The technology has become a lead target of a company called InCytu, based in Lincoln, R.I., that was launched in 2007. CEO Al Vasconcellos said the company raised $5 million this year from a group of non-venture capital professional investors.

“Venture capital funds have been conservative in this economic climate,” he said. But there is no shortage of interested parties now. Vasconcellos said he is in talks with a number of biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical companies about a possible partnership. He said his manufacturing facility in Rhode Island is ready to go, and that he will more than double his staff of 10 in the next year. InCytu’s potential vaccine will begin human studies next year.

The first target for the cancer vaccine will be late-stage melanoma tumors. More than 8,600 patients will die of melanoma in the United States in 2009, according to American Cancer Society. Vasconcellos said he hopes that researchers will eventually learn to map several common biomarkers, or defining characteristics, among melanoma tumors. Then the vaccine could potentially be designed to prevent tumors, not just attack them.

Cancer vaccines have been an elusive discovery for the scientific community. While a preventive vaccine against the virus that causes cervical cancer has been successful, approved products that cause an immune reaction to an actual tumor are nonexistent. The company that is closest to this goal is Seattle-based Dendreon Corp. Its vaccine target, called Provenge, has been shown to extend survival for prostate cancer patients, but has not been shown to kill tumors.

“If it gets approved, it would change the perception among investors about cancer vaccines. They’ve had a bad track record so far,” said Howard Liang, an analyst at life sciences investment bank Leerink Swann in Boston.

The Food and Drug Administration, after sending the vaccine target back for an additional trial, is expected to make a decision on whether to approve Provenge next May.

Boston Business Journal - by Julie M. Donnelly