Emergency intervention in cancer
is common if not the norm, although the removal of a mass is certainly an
inevitable necessity. However, we all
know that this far too often is a simple postponement and the current follow up
is chemo and radiation, neither of which is desirable.
Now we appear to have a vaccine
that suppresses such outright recurrence. This can save the majority of lives of folks
stricken with cancer or at least postpone their death for a far greater length
of time.
Let us hope this gets into
circulation as soon as possible.
Breakthrough: Israel
Develops Cancer Vaccine
Vaxil’s groundbreaking therapeutic vaccine, developed in Israel,
could keep about 90 percent of cancers from coming back.
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.
By Rivka Borochov
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