Startup, OncoPep Develops First Vaccine to Target Patients Before They Develop Cancer
Technology Review -- Most cancer vaccines are intended to rally a patient's immune system to fight cancers that have already progressed. But the startup company OncoPep, based in North Andover, Massachusetts, is developing a vaccine designed to prevent one kind of cancer—multiple myeloma—by treating patients who have only a precursor of the disease.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of blood plasma cells. It develops when abnormal plasma cells in bone marrow multiply and accumulate, eventually damaging bones and other tissues in the body, and finally overwhelming the immune system. Currently, treatments can extend the lives of patients with the cancer but not cure it.