The Fraunhofer Institute IZI and Australian company Prima BioMed Ltd. working together to test and gain approvals for novel therapeutic method to treat ovarian cancer.
Story content courtesy of Fraunhofer IZI
Prima BioMed Ltd. is developing an autologous immune therapy for the treatment of epithelial ovarian carcinoma.
The autologous immune therapy CVacTM is based on the modification of the body's own immune cells. Tumor cells are capable of evading the immune defense in various ways. The CVacTM method modifies the patient's specialized immune cells so as to make them recognize the tumor cells and activate diverse defense mechanisms of the immune system. These so-called dendritic cells are targeted to recognize a spe- cific protein (biomarker) that is present exclusively on the tumor cells. The immune system is thus capable of specifically attacking the tumor cells without affecting healthy cells. This form of treatment is therefore much gentler for the patient than irradiation and chemotherapies and also holds the promise of lower relapse rates.
Fraunhofer IZI is handling the manufacture of investigational medicinal products and the conduct of quality controls for the European arm of the study. This joint project is being funded with $4.1 million Euros by the Development Bank of Saxony.
