Defence Therapeutics has melanoma vaccine validated
Defence Therapeutics Inc., a Canadian biopharmaceutical company specialising in the development of immune-oncology vaccines and drug delivery technologies, is pleased to report the validation of its ARM vaccine candidate in a melanoma model with a cure rate of 60%.
Defence used a variant of the AccumTM (the A1) to reprogramme innate MSCs into antigen-presenting cells. This “off-the-shelf” universal vaccine (e.g., allogeneic to the recipient) was able to cure animals with pre-established lymphoma, and the observed therapeutic effects synergised with the use of the anti-PD-1 immune-checkpoint blocker. The vaccinated animals survived, and the majority rejected the established tumour and remained tumour free for over three months. Based on these strong results, Defence continued to accelerate the progress on the vaccine. These recently completed results add another therapeutic validation using the melanoma cancer model. This programme was prepared by the same planned protocol for a potential Phase I clinical cancer trial, where the melanoma cell lysate was used to pulse the ARM vaccine prior to vaccination.
“This experiment constitutes an important step in our advancement plan as it shows that Defence’s ARM vaccine can be used against any cancer tumour type given”, says Mr Plouffe, the CEO of Defence Therapeutics.
Defence is currently working to begin the manufacturing of its ARM vaccine in Q1 of 2023 with the objective to start treating patients in Phase I clinical cancer trials with solid tumours by Q3/Q4 of 2023.