Stemline Therapeutics Licenses PI/II Brain Cancer Vaccine
Targets cancer stem cells and tumor bulk.
Stemline Therapeutics, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel oncology compounds that target cancer stem cells (CSCs) announced the license from the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), for the exclusive worldwide rights to a clinically active oncology vaccine directed to multiple defined targets on tumor bulk and CSCs.
- Developed by Dr. Hideho Okada, Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and his colleagues at Pitt, the vaccine demonstrated safety, tolerability, and anti-tumor activity as a single agent in a Phase I, NIH funded study in 22 participants with recurrent high-grade glioma;
- Research findings, published recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the most common grade 1-2 adverse events (AEs) were injection site reactions and fatigue. There were no grade 3 or 4 AEs;
- The vaccine and its derivatives are being developed by Stemline under the name SL-701 as both an “off-the-shelf” peptide vaccine and a dendritic cell (DC) vaccine.
The Bottom Line: Not a bad license, because of the dual targeting of both tumor bulk and cancer stem cells and by virtue of its targeting of multiple defined epitopes, researchers are able to determine the specificity and magnitude of the immune response in patients. Observed reductions in tumor size as well as improvements in survival are consistent with the drug’s mechanism of action. A survival improvement over historical data was also observed in both the recurrent GBM and AG populations.
