Evaxion Biotech, CCIT, SSI and DTU enter into collaboration on the development of patient-tailored vaccines to attack cancer cells.

 

With a total grant of $3 Million, Innovation Fund Denmark is financing a four-year research collaboration – projected to cost $5 Million – on the development of a new and promising immunotherapy: a therapeutic cancer vaccine that stimulates each patient’s own immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells. Using gene technology and artificial intelligence, the new immunotherapy will be customized to individual patients to eliminate cancer cells more effectively and without the side-effects of existing therapies.

“In Evaxion, we have developed a technology platform that, by means of artificial intelligence, can identify promising antigens for vaccine candidates in infections and cancer diseases. Our role in the project is to identify the components to be used in these personalized vaccines we believe we have found the formula for,” says Niels Møller, CMO at Evaxion.

Within the ongoing project, Evaxion is managing the process of sequencing DNA, identifying and producing peptide components to be injected into patients. Although NeoPepVac has only just been kick-started, the project is already progressing rapidly, and the goal is to bring the new vaccine to market within 10 years.

Evaxion is the commercial driver of the project and will possess sole commercial rights for the vaccine.

“If the project succeeds, we are talking about billions of dollars. Our method can basically be applied broadly to all types of cancer – it is not limited to, for instance, breast cancer or