BALTIMORE and DUBLIN, Sept. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Vaccinogen, Inc. (“Vaccinogen”) (OTC.QB: VGEN), a cancer immunotherapy development company, announced today it has entered into an exclusive option agreement with Dublin City University (DCU), through one of its subsidiaries, that provides the Company with an exclusive two-year option to evaluate and acquire a revolutionary high-throughput, multiplex, analysis platform DiCAST. In conjunction with the agreement, the scientific team that developed DiCAST, including the lead inventor, Dr. Paul Leonard, has joined Vaccinogen and will spearhead the Company’s operations in Ireland, a critical component of its global translational research strategy.
Vaccinogen intends to utilize DiCAST to expand and significantly accelerate the Company’s human monoclonal antibody (HuMab) program, screening patient-derived biological samples acquired after gaining anti-cancer immunity. Vaccinogen plans to utilize DiCAST to identify immunologically relevant data from the biological samples to develop the next generation of safe and effective cancer vaccines and immunotherapies.
According to the option agreement, Vaccinogen will have exclusive rights to evaluate DiCAST for a two-year period. If Vaccinogen elects to exercise its option to acquire DiCAST, the technology may be further developed beyond Vaccinogen’s initial antibody focus to other biologic and small molecule drug discovery, with potential use across multiple areas of therapeutics, diagnostics, and basic research.
Andrew L. Tussing, Chairman and CEO of Vaccinogen, stated, “We believe this option agreement with DCU represents a truly transformational event for Vaccinogen. The addition of DiCAST, which we believe is unrivaled in the speed and precision with which it is able to analyze biological samples in highly ordered subnanoliter microcapillary arrays, offers the potential to significantly enhance our HuMab program and our efforts to discover and develop cancer therapeutics and vaccines for a host of oncology indications.”
DiCAST (Direct Clone Analysis and Selection Technology) is a novel, patent pending technology designed to improve the speed and quality of early-stage drug discovery. This preclinical platform allows for simultaneous analysis of millions of samples to determine immunologic activity and identify optimal targets for further development. The DiCAST platform includes three highly specialized components: a densely packed microcapillary array, real-time assay visualization with proprietary convergent computation software integrating multiple analytical datasets, and a novel custom-built high precision recovery system that allows for individual target acquisition while preserving biological material integrity. Laboratory results have demonstrated that DiCAST can analyze over 35,000 times more samples per test iteration than traditional methods and can identify new immunological components with improved performance that previously could not be identified using traditional approaches.
Professor Brian MacCraith, President of Dublin City University, commented, “We welcome this important announcement by Vaccinogen, and we are delighted to have entered into this strategic relationship to advance a technology invented at our Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) at DCU. Additionally, the appointment of former Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) staff to positions at Vaccinogen is a strong endorsement of DCU’s wider research expertise in biomedical sciences, while the advanced facilities and research support that BDI provides were significant factors in Vaccinogen’s decision to base its Irish research operation at our Glasnevin campus. We hope that the DCU-Vaccinogen relationship can be a model for future academic industry collaboration and effective knowledge transfer. The underlying technology benefited from proof of concept funding for basic life sciences from Science Foundation Ireland and later stage development and prototype funding support from Enterprise Ireland.
Mr. Tussing added, “We are fortunate to have such a strong partner in DCU and look forward to benefiting from the team of renowned scientists now part of Vaccinogen, including the lead inventor of DiCAST, Dr. Paul Leonard. Dr. Leonard and his team, who represent the technological know-how of this platform, will be instrumental as Vaccinogen establishes operations in Ireland at the DCU campus and focuses on opportunities to rapidly translate our immunological component discoveries into pipeline candidates.”
Formerly a principal investigator in translational research at the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at DCU, Dr. Leonard is an entrepreneurial scientist, inventor, and the current recipient of the Irish laboratory awards “2014 Innovation of the Year” for his work on the DiCAST platform. As Vaccinogen’s Director of In Vitro Assay Development, Dr. Leonard is responsible for spearheading the implementation of DiCAST for Vaccinogen’s current work in developing cancer vaccines, as well as fully optimizing this technology to answer other challenging biological questions.
Joining Dr. Leonard at Vaccinogen is the team of scientists from the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at DCU who were instrumental in developing the DiCAST platform. Collectively the team will be responsible for establishing Vaccinogen’s Irish operations to focus on translational medicine development and early-stage human antibody discovery and characterization. Members of the DiCAST team include co-inventor Valerie Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Ruth Larragy, Ph.D. and Brian Manning, B.Eng.
“Speaking on behalf of my research colleagues, it is a tremendous opportunity to join Vaccinogen and continue playing a direct role in leveraging DiCAST to potentially transform the discovery and development of immunologic therapeutics, including cancer vaccines,” remarked Dr. Leonard. “It is our belief that DiCAST is a revolutionary platform that offers enhanced productivity, screening, recovery and economic yields compared to current ‘gold standard’ antibody discovery technologies. These capabilities should enable Vaccinogen to improve the efficiency of our antibody discovery processes, reduce production costs and move future products up the value chain more quickly.”
Peter Morsing, Ph.D., Global Head of Business Development & Strategy at Vaccinogen, concluded, “We believe DiCAST will give Vaccinogen a significant competitive advantage by enabling the Company to leverage its library of patient-derived samples to rapidly identify new antibody drugs that can either be developed internally or potentially out-licensed. Additionally, the high-throughput screening capabilities that DiCAST offers are widely sought within the pharmaceutical industry as a key component of early-stage antibody production and drug discovery. We are very pleased to have secured this option agreement with DCU and look forward to maximizing the potential of this technology.”
The financial terms of the option agreement were not disclosed. Should Vaccinogen exercise its option to acquire DiCAST, DCU would be awarded a combination of cash and warrants to purchase Vaccinogen stock. Upon potential acquisition, Vaccinogen would have rights to out-license the DiCAST technology to research and pharmaceutical partners worldwide.
About Dublin City University (DCU)
Dublin City University is a research-intensive, globally-engaged University of Enterprise, distinguished both by the quality and impact of its graduates and its focus on the translation of knowledge into societal and economic benefit. Through its mission to transform lives and societies through education, research and innovation, Dublin City University acts as an agent for social, cultural and economic progress at the individual, national and international levels. DCU has been consistently ranked among the top young universities in the world in recent years (QS ‘Top 50 under 50' and THE Top 100 Under 50). The Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at DCU is an academic industry research institute funded by Science Foundation Ireland with additional support from Enterprise Ireland working with international industrial partners and clinicians to address unmet diagnostics needs in partnership with scientists at other leading Irish universities including the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, the National University of Ireland in Galway and the Tyndall Institute at University College Cork.
About Vaccinogen, Inc.
Vaccinogen, Inc. is a cancer vaccine company clinically testing OncoVAX®, a treatment designed to prevent the recurrence of colon cancer and potentially other solid tumors. It is a patented process that leverages a patient’s own live tumor cells to launch a broad immune response against minimal residual disease. Vaccinogen believes that OncoVAX®, at an optimal dose and regimen, is the first colon cancer vaccine to demonstrate effectiveness in preventing cancer recurrence after surgical resection by addressing the diversity of cancer cells inherent to each patient’s tumor. Five clinical studies of OncoVAX®, including a phase III trial with the optimum dose and regimen, have been completed. Vaccinogen expects to begin enrolling patients in a pivotal phase IIIb trial under an FDA Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the near-term. More information is available at www.vaccinogeninc.com.
Forward Looking Statement
Some of the statements contained in this press release may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as “anticipates”, “believe”, “plan”, “intend”, “expect”, “likely”, “may”, “should”, “will”, and similar references to future periods. Vaccinogen has based these forward-looking statements largely on its expectations and projections about future events and financial trends affecting the financial condition and/or operating results of our business. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties; particularly those risks and uncertainties inherent in the process of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics. In addition, these forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties outlined in our most recent periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. There are important factors that could cause actual results to be substantially different from the results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements. Vaccinogen does not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information.
For Vaccinogen, Inc.:
Media / Investor Contacts:
Jason Rando /Joshua Drumm, Ph.D.
Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc.
212-375-2665 / 2664
jrando@tiberend.com
jdrumm@tiberend.com
For Dublin City University:
Gráinne Mooney
+353 1 700 8518
grainne.mooney@dcu.ie
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vaccinogen-enhances-patient-derived-antibody-program-with-revolutionary-high-throughput-single-cell-screening-and-analysis-system-300139526.html
SOURCE Vaccinogen, Inc.
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