Targeting the Treatment of Certain B-Cell Lymphomas including Follicular Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and Mantle Cell Lymphoma

What is a Personalized Cancer Vaccine?

Unlike a preventative vaccine, such as for measles or mumps, BiovaxID is administered as a cancer treatment, designed to stimulate and "train" the patient's immune system to respond and attack cancerous cells, even long after therapy has been stopped — each vaccine being unique to that particular patient.

(Clockwise) Beginning with an excisional (>2cm) lymph node biopsy, tumor cells are fused with our proprietary mouse/human heterohybridoma in order to induce secretion of normally surface-bound tumor immunoglobulin (idiotype or Id). Id-secreting clones are identified by comparing their unique idiotype sequence to the tumor’s after which they are cultured (expanded) in the AutovaxID™ bioreactor system. During culture, supernatant (containing idiotype) is collected until sufficient amounts have been produced to yield adequate dosage of vaccine. This supernatant is purified by affinity chromatography and conjugated (bonded) to KLH carrier protein, resulting in a finished vaccine that can be shipped and administered to patients. In the Phase III clinical trial, manufacturing success was approximately 95% of treated patients. (Fig. reprinted from Neelapu, et al. Exp. Opin Biol Ther 2007).

Since BiovaxID is a personalized vaccine, each patient’s vaccine is individually manufactured from a tissue biopsy obtained from a patient’s own tumor. This approach is used because there is a unique protein called an “idiotype” expressed exclusively on the cancerous B-cells. So, when a full, high-fidelity copy of the idiotype is linked to a foreign protein (KLH), and administered with an immune-enhancing agent (GM-CSF), the resulting vaccine can mount a highly-specific anti-lymphoma attack that “trains” the body’s own immune system to solely recognize the idiotype as a “foreign invader”, thus stimulating and recruiting the patient’s own immune system to destroy micro-pockets of cancer cells that may remain following chemotherapy and potentially target and destroy newly arising lymphoma cells, thus delaying or preventing cancer recurrence. As such, through its unique mode of action, and exemplary safety record, BiovaxID represents a new therapeutic approach to treating follicular lymphoma.