Asterias And Cancer Research UK Partner In Lung Cancer Vaccine Clinical Trial

BioTime’s subisidiary Asterias Biotherapeutics has entered into collaboration with Cancer Research UK’s development and marketing arm Cancer Research Technology (CRT) to investigate Asterias’ immunotherapy vaccine AST-VAC2 in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

AST-VAC2 is a non-patient specific (allogeneic) cancer vaccine that encourages the immune system to destroy telomerase, a protein found in over 95 percent of cancers but rarely in healthy adult cells. AST-VAC2 is developed from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). This gives the treatment an advantage over other autologous or patient-specific vaccines which must be produced on an individual basis. AST-VAC2 can be manufactured on a large scale and stored as a ready-to-use treatment.

Under the terms of the agreement, Asterias will complete AST-VAC2’s manufacturing process upon which Cancer Research UK will produce the vaccine and conduct the Phase I/II clinical trial in the U.K. The clinical trial will investigate AST-VAC2’s safety, vaccine toxicity, feasibility, and stimulation of patient immune response. The trial will also assess clinical outcome following AST-VAC2’s administration in patients with resected early-stage lung cancer as well as late-stage lung cancer.

Once the trial is completed, Asterias will have the first option to acquire a license to the trial data. If Asterias does not exercise this option, CRT will have the option to acquire a license to the company’s intellectual property for the continuation of the vaccine’s development and marketing. This also includes any related products to the treatment, for which CRT will share any development and partnership revenue with Asterias.

Jane Lebkowski, President of R&D at Asterias, said, “The use of human embryonic stem cells to derive allogeneic dendritic cells for cancer immunotherapy has the potential to dramatically improve the scalability, consistency, and feasibility of cellular cancer vaccines. We believe this collaboration will enable the acceleration of clinical studies of AST-VAC2 and the collection of important proof-of-concept data for the entire human embryonic stem cell-derived dendritic cell immunotherapy platform.”

Nigel Blackburn, Cancer Research UK’s Director of Drug Development, said, “Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have demonstrated the exciting potential of these treatments to improve outcomes in devastating diseases such as lung cancer. Better treatment options for lung cancer are badly needed and it is through collaborations such as this that we can save more lives sooner.”

Last month, CRT also announced a collaboration with Astellas Pharma to discover novel cancer therapies with an initial focus on pancreatic cancer.