Article describes how these strongly immunogenic peptides evade immune tolerance and enable universal application for novel class of therapeutic vaccines
Paris, France, June 20, 2016 – Vaxon Biotech, a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutic cancer vaccines, today announces the publication, in Annals of Translational Medicine, of a review article describing the potential for optimized cryptic peptides to activate immune responses universally: throughout broad patient populations and throughout genetically heterogenous tumors.
Vaxon’s proprietary optimized cryptic peptides are broadly overexpressed in tumors. While normally undetected by the immune system, they have been modified and synthesized to optimize their presentation to the immune system so as to induce a powerful anti-tumor immune response, thus acting as ‘universal neoantigens’.
In contrast, the development of non-universal, patient-specific neoantigens faces three main challenges:
• The need for identification for each patient individually, incurring significant expense in specialized research centers
• The lack of feasibility for evaluation of safety and efficacy prior to their administration in patients as cancer treatment
• The inability to generate immune responses against the entirety of genetically heterogeneous tumors
The recently published article outlines how optimized cryptic peptides have the advantages of patient-specific neoantigens while avoiding their challenges. Optimized cryptic peptides evade immune tolerance, are strongly immunogenic and enable universal application. They can target all tumor cells and can be developed in the standard way. Vaxon’s optimized cryptic peptides could therefore be the new alternative to patient-specific neoantigens.
“Vaxon is the only company developing a novel type of neoantigen,” said Kostas Kosmatopoulos, Vaxon’s CEO and founder. “We anticipate clinical efficacy results with our lead clinical candidate vaccine soon.”
The article, entitled ‘Optimized tumor cryptic peptides: the basis for universal neo-antigen-like tumor vaccines,’ was published on May 15, 2016. It was authored by Jeanne Menez-Jamet, Catherine Gallou, Aude Rougeot and Kostas Kosmatopoulos.
It can be accessed at: atm.amegroups.com/issue/publishAheadOfPrint
About Vaxon Biotech
Vaxon Biotech, based in Paris, France, is a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutic cancer vaccines based on optimized cryptic peptides. Vaxon was founded by Kostas Kosmatopoulos, inventor of Vaxon’s proprietary technology for effective cryptic peptide vaccines. Based on Vaxon’s optimized cryptic peptide vaccine platform, the company has developed a pipeline of therapeutic cancer vaccines, led by Vx-001, now completing Phase 2b testing in non-small-cell lung cancer patients, and Vx-006, now in Phase 1 development. Vaxon has received funding support from INSERM, Genopole, OSEO and the French government.
www.vaxon-biotech.com
