Application to Immunotherapy Vaccines for Cancer Treatment

Cytomatrix has developed methods for incorporation of antigens and dendritic cell (DC) promoting elements into biodegradable SPF that can be administered by simple injection. These SPF have the potential to promote DC differentiation both in the laboratory (in vitro) and in vivo, and to present specific antigens, which are incorporated into the SPF, to these DCs for presentation to T-cells to initiate an immune response. The SPF method is simple and rapid, and all the components needed are available at clinical grade, reducing the regulatory hurdles for clinical development. The method is also highly versatile, enabling a range of different antigens to be incorporated into the SPF, and enabling mixtures of fibre types to be used.

Cytomatrix has successfully demonstrated that our proprietary short-polymer-fibre (SPF) system can incorporate proteins, peptides and oligonucleotides on different polymer backbones. Cytomatrix is building on its patented technology by registering additional improvements to the production process and coverage for incorporation of a range of biologically active molecules, peptides and amino acids.

The use of our SPF system in triple-negative breast cancer (4T1) and melanoma (B16-F10) models in mice showed a slowing of tumour growth and prolonged survival when compared to a placebo control arm (SPFs alone). Importantly, the system compares very favourably to other competitor products involving polymeric or sustained-release systems published in the literature and in clinical development.