Despite countless advances in science and medicine, the number of global cancer deaths has increased by nearly 75 percent in just over three decades. This year, this indiscriminate killer is expected to cause the deaths of nearly 10 million men, women and children. Despite these staggering statistics, there is hope on the horizon for cancer patients, both with rapidly improving treatments that can increase quality of life and life expectancy post-diagnosis, and treatments that just may have the power to completely rid the body of cancer and help stop it from coming back. All of these treatments have one amazing, but commonly overlooked thing in common: they’re made with the power of vaccines, a power that is driving cancer treatments today and for the future.
Cancer vaccines now: therapeutic treatment for specific cancers
If the term “cancer vaccine” makes you think of Merck & Co.’s Gardasil, you’re not alone. That’s because this vaccine has become synonymous with the prevention of cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancer in women, as well as anal cancer, some types of head and neck cancer, and genital warts in both women and men. In reality, Gardasil doesn’t directly prevent these cancers. Instead, it prevents human papillomavirus, or HPV, which has been scientifically linked to all of these cancers. The Hepatitis B vaccine works in much the same way, preventing recipients from contracting the Hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver cancer. To date, there are no preventative vaccines for the direct prevention of cancer.
That said, there is a different and important type of vaccine helping to put an end to certain cancers right now: therapeutic vaccines, often referred to in oncology as immunotherapy. Immunotherapy works by boosting the immune system’s ability to fight cancer that already exists in the body. Not every immunotherapy treatment works in the same way. Some help the immune system to stop tumors from growing or metastasizing— spreading to other parts of the body— while others help the immune system to better recognize the antigens— unsafe molecules common to cancer cells— so that the body can destroy those cancer cells that remain after treatments are completed, and even stand guard to keep it from coming back again.
Despite sounding new, therapeutic cancer vaccines have been in use for more than two decades, though most are only available at this time through clinical trials. To date, there are just a handful of therapeutic cancer vaccines approved for use in the United States by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). These include Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)— a vaccine for the treatment of early-stage bladder cancer— and Sipuleucel (Provenge®)— a vaccine for the treatment of prostate cancer. Importantly, there are many more therapeutic vaccines in drug development pipelines all over the world right now.
CancerVax currently has a novel therapeutic vaccine candidate in preclinical studies for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive childhood cancer that most often begins in the lower extremities, including the pelvis, femur, or thigh bone, or in soft tissue. The 5-year Ewing sarcoma survival rate of 55-65% is a positive statistic, but for the 1,000 children and adolescents between the ages of 10 and 20 who will be diagnosed with the disease this year, it means the thus-far little medical research completed does not produce treatments that can stop it from spreading or coming back. Working with UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, CancerVax has been studying the relationship between LINGO1— an immunoglobulin-like protein rich in leucine that has been detected on the surface of more than 90% of Ewing sarcoma-related tumors— and Ewing sarcoma, and developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and bispecific antibodies to target LINGO1 and leverage it like a superhighway to deliver cancer-killing therapeutics directly into tumors.
To date, our team has developed seven monoclonal antibody candidates for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma. Six of these candidates have been both humanized and confirmed to have a targeting affinity for LINGO1. With three candidates set to become bispecific antibodies and two in development as CAR T-cell treatments, there’s a significant possibility we may soon be able to successfully treat or even put an end to Ewing sarcoma.
Importantly, CancerVax isn’t the only preclinical biotechnology company working on therapeutic vaccines, and that’s good news for cancer patients and their families. Scientists at Sloan Kettering are currently working on treatments for pancreatic cancer, while researchers at both Harvard Medical School and Mass General Cancer Center are both focused on high-risk melanoma, just to name a few.
Cancer vaccines for the future: personalizing treatments and a single vaccine to eradicate cancer
Not mentioned so far in this article are personalized cancer vaccines— those that are made using a cancer patient’s own tumors and cancer cells. Earlier this year, the Mass General Cancer Center’s study for the treatment of high-risk melanoma made headlines when researchers revealed that study participants who received a personalized vaccine alongside traditional immunotherapy were more likely to still be free of cancer after 18 months than those who only received immunotherapy. While the study was small, as are most personalized vaccine studies at this time, it’s a step in the right direction to helping free current and future cancer patients from disease.
At CancerVax and other biotechnology firms, researchers are committed to helping every living cancer patient become free from cancer, so we’re not stopping at research into individual cancers. We have a much bigger goal: to help eradicate cancer tumors and cells in every type of cancer with just one vaccine. This universal cancer vaccine uses cutting-edge bioengineering and molecular technologies to seek, pinpoint, and destroy only cancer cells, without hurting surrounding healthy cells.
To clarify, we’re forcing cancer cells to express a unique marker that healthy cells do not have, making it possible to create custom antibody drugs and guide the body’s immune system to target and kill cancer cells with precision. That’s important because it means more effective treatments with fewer side effects. And we’re taking it one step further by working on ways to make cancer cells express protein markers for other diseases that the immune already recognizes like measles, tetanus, and the flu. If successful, this would incite the immune system to attack and destroy cancer cells as if they were previously vaccinated against diseases. Currently in discovery with UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, our hope is that this therapeutic vaccine will someday be as simple to get as a flu shot, with just one or two doses.
Final Thought
We’re not the only researchers working on universal cancer vaccines, and hopefully, that means success is just around the corner. The more we learn through our own research and that of others, the closer we come to creating a world free from cancer and making hope into reality for the 10 million people waiting today for a cure, and the millions who still don’t know they will need one tomorrow.
