Date: 2014-06-25
Type of information: Results
phase: preclinical
Announcement:
Company: MediGene (Germany)
Product: optimized formulation of a DC vaccine
Action
mechanism: cell therapy/immunotherapy. Medigene's dendritic cell product platform allows the design of new generation dendritic cell vaccines. Dendritic cells can take up antigens efficiently, process them and present them on their surface in a form that can induce antigen-specific T cells to proliferate and mature. This way T cells can recognize and eliminate antigen-bearing tumour cells. Dendritic cells can also induce natural killer cells (NK cells) to become active and attack tumour cells. Scientists of Medigene Immunotherapies have developed new, fast and efficient methods for preparing autologous (patient-specific) mature dendritic cells which have relevant characteristics to activate both T cells and NK cells. The dendritic cells can be loaded with various tumour antigens to treat different types of cancer and are suited for treatment of minimal residual disease or use in combination therapies.
Disease: hormone-refractory prostate cancer
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Country:
Trial details:
Latest
news: * On June 25, 2014, Medigene has announced that the team of dendritic cell scientists has successfully concluded a project for the optimized formulation of a DC vaccine for the specific treatment of hormone-refractory prostate cancer. The project was carried out at the Helmholtz-Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, HMGU, and was supported by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs as part of the m4 Award (funding reference: 1330 683 62/7/12). The optimized vaccine formulation which has been developed will form the basis of discussions that Medigene/Trianta will have with potential partners on the continued clinical development of DC vaccines for prostate cancer. Over the past two years, the development of an optimized DC vaccine formulation for prostate cancer has received a total of € 450,000 through this m4 funding program at the Helmholtz-Zentrum München (HGMU). Medigene acquired the in-licensed technology and the relevant acumen with the acquisition of Trianta Immunotherapies GmbH in January 2014. Following the positive conclusion of the m4 Award project at the Helmholtz-Zentrum München (HGMU), all members of the DC scientist team are now continuing their development work at Medigene. The platform for the development of antigen-tailored DC vaccines is the most advanced platform of the three highly innovative and complementary immunotherapy platforms of Trianta Immunotherapies GmbH. Currently the DC vaccines are being evaluated in two ongoing investigator-initiated trials in clinical phases I/II and II. Medigene/Trianta concentrates on the further development of DC vaccines in hematological malignancies and plans to initiate a further clinical study in AML in 2014.
