On June 19, 2019 Nouscom, an immuno-oncology company developing off-the-shelf and personalized cancer neoantigen vaccines, reported the publication of a paper in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Communications, entitled: Adenoviral vaccine targeting multiple neoantigens as strategy to eradicate large tumors combined with checkpoint blockade (D’Alise et al, reference below) (Press release, NousCom, JUN 19, 2019, View Source [SID1234537185]). The authors describe results from preclinical studies investigating the immunological potency and efficacy of a vaccine based on an adenovirus vector derived from non-human Great Apes (GAd) that encodes multiple neoantigens.
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The study demonstrated that a single administration of Nouscom’s GAd vaccine can eradicate large tumors in mouse models when combined with anti-PD1 or anti-PD-L1 treatment and triples the efficacy of such checkpoint inhibitors in established tumors. Nouscom’s GAd vaccine accommodates multiple neoantigens, up to 31 in these studies, and demonstrates strong and broad CD8+ and CD4+ neoantigen-specific T cell responses following vaccination. The results highlight the potential of these viral vector vaccines for development as personalized cancer vaccines.
Dr. Elisa Scarselli, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Nouscom, said: "We are very encouraged by these preclinical results. These exciting data confirm our hypothesis that our GAd vaccine synergizes with checkpoint inhibitors. It also establishes that anti-tumor efficacy positively correlates with the breadth and potency of T cell responses induced by vaccination, including the expansion of the intratumoral T cell repertoire. Our findings have a potential translational impact, suggesting that the changes in intratumoral T cell repertoire induced by the vaccination might be an indicator of treatment efficacy."
Dr. Scarselli added, "These findings provide compelling preclinical evidence that a vaccine encoding multiple neoantigens in combination with anti-PD1 or anti-PD-L1 may be an efficacious approach for the personalized treatment of cancers. We look forward to evaluating our approach with NOUS-PEV, a personalized cancer vaccine, in human trials, which we expect to start in 2020."
References
A.M. D’Alise et al. Adenoviral vaccine targeting multiple neoantigens as strategy to eradicate large tumors combined with checkpoint blockade, Nature Communications 2019.
Online publication: View Source