Side 5 i årsrapport for 2018
In a nutshell, immunotherapy utilises the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, which is a radically different approach to treating cancer than chemotherapy. The armamentarium of the field of cancer immunotherapy includes many different therapeutic approaches including antibody-based treatments, cell-based therapies, and therapeutic vaccines. The pharmaceutical industry has long recognised the potential of therapeutic cancer vaccination and the objective of a therapeutic vaccine is to treat an existing disease using the body’s natural defences. Whereas in a traditional anti- infectious vaccine, the main component of the vaccine is a disease antigen, in the case of a cancer vaccine the main component can be a peptide or protein found on the surface of tumour cells. By vaccinating with such tumour-specific antigens, the body’s natural defences can be trained to recognise and destroy cancers cells.
Peptide and protein based vaccines are a subgroup of therapeutic cancer vaccines. There is a broad consensus that therapeutic peptide and protein based cancer vaccines have so far not been able to elicit sufficiently strong immune responses. A fundamental challenge for most existing therapeutic vaccine approaches is to produce a strong and relevant cellular immune response (T-cell activation). A potent induction of Cytotoxic T-cells is considered paramount for successful therapeutic vaccination. This is a main need in the market, which could be addressed by using the fimaVACC technology. In addition to the use in therapeutic vaccination for cancer, fimaVACC also has the potential to be used for both therapeutic and prophylactic vaccination for several infectious diseases.
fimaVACC is an endosomal escape technology that may realise the true benefit of innovative therapeutic vaccines by modifying the intracellular machinery of immune cells in such a way that antigens are more efficiently processed and induce antigen specific cytotoxic T-cells. The innovative and well characterised mode of action of fimaVACC can be applied to a wide range of cancer vaccine technologies and provide PCI Biotech with a strategic opportunity to enter the field of cancer immunotherapy at a time where the understanding of cancer biology and the potential of modulating the immune response to fight cancer is growing at a rapid pace.
In terms of type of vaccination, fimaVACC is also a versatile technology that can be used in multiple settings including, intradermal, intranodal, and intratumoural administration. Preclinical research has shown that it could also be developed in conjunction with ex vivo vaccination. Another promising way forward in the development of therapeutic vaccines is to combine vaccination with other cancer immunotherapy modalities such as checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs). There is a strong scientific rationale for combining CPIs with the fimaVACC technology: fimaVACC increases the number of T-cells induced by cancer vaccines while the CPIs prevent the tumour from evading the immune response. This potentially powerful combination could be summarised with a car analogy where the immune system is the engine, the vaccine is the fuel, the CPIs release the brakes, and fimaVACC is the turbocharger.
