About CVac™

CVac™ cell therapy or cancer vaccine is a novel investigational vaccine for the treatment of certain types of cancer.  It is believed to act by stimulating the production of immune cells, produced naturally in the body, that target and attack cancer cells.  It has been designed for use as a maintenance therapy after chemotherapy.

How does CVac™ cell therapy work?

The immune system normally polices the body, eliminating abnormal cells, including tumour cells. Tumour cells can escape the immune system and may not longer be recognized as abnormal. The CVac™ vaccine has been designed to boost the immune system so that it recognizes the tumour cells once again, and destroys them. The key to the vaccine is that it uses the patient’s own immune cells to fire up the immune system to target tumour cells producing a protein called Mucin-1.

In a process called apheresis, dendritic cells are removed from the cancer patients blood in a single out-patient procedure. The dendritic cell’s function in the body is to recognize proteins that are abnormal, and then to program T Cells, the immune system’s killer cells, to seek out the tumour cells that are producing the abnormal protein and destroy them. The dendritic cells are multiplied in the laboratory, and a protein called mucin-1 attached to a sugaris added to the cells. The mucin-1 sugar complex is called manna fusion protein or MFP. Mucin-1 is produced in great quantities by certain tumours, including ovarian cancer. The dendritic cells take up the MFP, and now are activated to seek out T Cells, and program them to attack ovarian cancer cells. The vaccine is frozen, then transported to the patient’s physician. The vaccine is thawed, and the cells are injected into the skin. The dendritic cells seek out the T Cells and arm them to find and attack the tumour.







What are the key benefits of CVac™?

To date, there is no approved maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer following chemotherapy regimens. CVac™ has been designed to be used as a maintenance therapy.

CVac™ cell therapy uses the strengths of the patient's own immune system to fight cancer without the immune suppression and certain side effects observed with chemotherapy. CVac™ is a vaccine produced from the patient’s own cells. Unlike many chemotherapeutic agents that prevent white blood cell production and in high doses can be toxic, the vaccine has shown very few side effects to date and has a good safety profile.

The CVac™ target, mucin-1, is overproduced by a range of cancers that may be treatable with the vaccine.