As the world's population lives longer than ever, if we don't succumb to
heart disease, strokes or accidents, it is more likely that cancer will get us
one way or another. Cancer is tough to fight, as the body learns how to outsmart
medical approaches that often kill normal cells while targeting the malignant
ones.
In a breakthrough development, the Israeli company Vaxil BioTherapeutics has
formulated a therapeutic cancer vaccine, now in clinical trials at Hadassah
University Medical Center in Jerusalem. If all goes well, the vaccine could be
available about six years down the road, to administer on a regular basis not
only to help treat cancer but in order to keep the disease from recurring.
The vaccine is being tested against a type of blood cancer called multiple
myeloma. If the substance works as hoped - and it looks like all arrows are
pointing that way - its platform technology VaxHit could be applied to 90
percent of all known cancers, including prostate and breast cancer, solid and
non-solid tumors.
"In cancer, the body knows something is not quite right but the immune system
doesn't know how to protect itself against the tumor like it does against an
infection or virus. This is because cancer cells are the body's own cells gone
wrong," says Julian Levy, the company's CFO. "Coupled with that, a cancer
patient has a depressed immune system, caused both by the illness and by the
treatment."
The trick is to activate a compromised immune system to mobilize against the
threat.
A vaccine that works like a drug
A traditional vaccine helps the body's immune system fend off foreign
invaders such as bacteria or viruses, and is administered to people who have not
yet had the ailment. Therapeutic vaccines, like the one Vaxil has developed, are
given to sick people, and work more like a drug.
Vaxil's lead product, ImMucin, activates the immune system by "training"
T-cells - the immune cells that protect the body by searching out and destroying
cells that display a specific molecule (or marker) called MUC1. MUC1 is
typically found only on cancer cells and not on healthy cells. The T-cells don't
attack any cells without MUC1, meaning there are no side effects unlike
traditional cancer treatments. More than 90% of different cancers have MUC1 on
their cells, which indicates the potential for this vaccine.
"It's a really big thing," says Levy, a biotechnology entrepreneur who was
formerly CEO for Biokine Therapeutics. "If you give chemo, apart from the really
nasty side effects, what often happens is that cancer becomes immune [to it].
The tumor likes to mutate and develops an ability to hide from the treatment.
Our vaccines are also designed to overcome that problem."
For cancers in an advanced stage, treatments like chemo or surgery to remove
a large tumor will still be needed, but if the cancer can be brought down to
scale, the body is then able to deal with it, Levy explains. ImMucin is foreseen
as a long-term strategy - a shot every few months, with no side effects - to
stop the cancer from reoccurring after initial treatments, by ensuring that the
patient's own immune system keeps it under control.
In parallel, the company is also working on a vaccine that treats
tuberculosis, a disease that's increasing worldwide, including in the developed
world, and for which the current vaccine is often ineffective and treatment is
problematic.
Based in Ness Ziona, Vaxil was founded in 2006 by Dr. Lior Carmon, a
biotechnology entrepreneur with a doctorate in immunology from the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Rehovot. In June, Vaxil signed a memorandum of understanding to
merge its activities into Sheldonco, a company traded on the Tel Aviv Stock
Exchange.