Targeting cancer with mutanome based stem cell vaccine

The successful application of immune checkpoints inhibitors has modified the therapeutic strategies in several cancers but only 30% of patients will respond optimally to these therapies.

One of the reasons for the failure of these therapies is the resistance of cancer stem cells (CSCs) leading to relapses long after the initial treatment.

These cells are also resistant to conventional therapies via their quiescence and there are no targeted therapies available against them.

The ambition of IPSIRIUS, a French biotechnology company, spinoff of INSERM and Paris Saclay University is to develop active cancer immunotherapy products based on the revolutionary induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology.

IPSIRIUS developed first IPVAC, with the aim of leveraging patients immune system against a large panel of cancer antigens which are shared between iPSC and CSCs.

With IPVAC, IPSIRIUS is developing a ground-breaking technology, having resolved all technical issues limiting cell-based therapies used for cancer. IPVAC is a safe, allogenic, off-the-shelf therapy, highly scalable using a versatile technology.

This cell-based vaccination strategy showed efficacy in prophylactic and therapeutic settings against aggressive solid cancers with stemness features.

The overall goal of the MUTAVAC project is i) to uncover the mechanisms of action of IPVAC, ii) to generate a highly immunogenic version of IPVAC, and iii) to design robust in vitro immunogenicity tests to predict immunogenicity of IPVAC and IPVAC-Mut in humans.

With MUTAVAC project, IPSIRIUS will i) strengthen the scientific data on IPVAC to prepare its clinical development and leading to the open access publications and patents, ii) define a personalised medicine to propose efficient therapeutic cancer vaccine in patients with all HLA groups, iii) identify new targets for future cancer therapies, and iv) develop a technological platform to facilitate the development of the next-generation of cell therapies.