VAXIMM AG, a Swiss/German biotech company focused on developing oral T-cell immunotherapies, announced that preclinical data for two of its programmes are being presented at the upcoming "Third CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival" being held September 6-9, 2017 in Mainz, Germany. The posters will be presented during "Poster Session B" on September 8 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. The abstracts are available on the conference website.
The first poster, "A live attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium oral T cell vaccine against PD-L1 protects 100% of animals from a leukemia challenge," summarizes the immunogenicity and anti-cancer efficacy of the Salmonella Typhimurium-based vaccines VXM10m and VXM10ma, transformed with eukaryotic expression plasmids encoding the full-length murine programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein or a truncated form of PD-L1, respectively. Multiple oral administrations of VXM10m and VXM10ma were generally well tolerated, and neither sign of toxicity nor body weight loss were observed. Oral administration of VXM10m and VXM10ma produced a strong anti-tumor effect in the FBL-3 leukemia model, with a 100% survival rate 80 days after leukemia challenge in those groups given the highest doses. All long-term surviving mice resisted a re-challenge with FBL-3 cells, demonstrating that vaccination with VXM10m and VXM10ma generated a potent memory T-cell response against the leukemia cells. Immune response towards PD-L1 is currently being evaluated to elucidate the precise mechanism of action of these novel vaccines.
The second poster, "Non-clinical safety, immunogenicity and antitumor efficacy of VXM06m, a live attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium oral T cell vaccine against WT-1," summarizes the preclinical toxicity, immunogenicity and anti-cancer efficacy of the Salmonella Typhimurium-based vaccine VXM06m carrying a murine Wilm's tumor 1 (WT-1) protein variant. VMX06m was well tolerated. Oral vaccination with VXM06m induced a systemic antigen-specific immune response, peaking 10 days after the last dose, and generated a rapid and strong anti-tumor effect in the FBL-3 leukemia model, with a 100% survival rate 80 days after leukemia challenge. All surviving mice resisted a re-challenge with FBL-3 cells, demonstrating that vaccination with VXM06m generated a potent memory T-cell response against the leukemia cells.
VAXIMM's versatile technology platform is based on the live attenuated bacterial vaccine strain Ty21a and is being used to discover novel oral T-cell immunotherapies to treat a variety of cancers. The data being presented support the use of VAXIMM's oral T-cell immunotherapy platform to stimulate an anti-tumor response against tumor-associated antigens, as well as against PD-L1-expressing cells, and pave the way for advancing VXM06 and VXM10 into clinical development.
The Third CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR Conference is sponsored by the Cancer Research Institute (CRI), the Association for Cancer lmmunotherapy (CIMT), the European Academy of Tumor Immunology (EATI), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).