US Patent Granted for Use of Genticel’s Antigen Delivery Vectors
Genticel recently announced that a new patent (No. 9,095,537), Therapy of Cancer Based on Targeting Adaptive, Innate and/or Regulatory Component of the Immune Response, has been granted in the United States. This patent, exclusively licensed by Institut Pasteur to Genticel, protects the use of the Company’s CyaA-based antigen delivery vectors in combination therapy to treat cancer.
“This new patent strengthens our intellectual property portfolio and expands our potential to progress in therapeutic areas beyond early stage disease by enabling the use of our CyaA vectors in combination with other drugs for advanced cancer,” said Martin Koch, CEO of Genticel. “Genticel now holds multiple key patents protecting our technology for use in many indications – from viral infection to cancer – in all major markets.”
The CyaA (adenylate cyclase) vector is a breakthrough in antigen delivery technology used by Genticel to develop its lead product candidate, GTL001 (ProCervix), currently in a fully recruited Phase II clinical trial. GTL001 is a therapeutic vaccine that aims to treat the 93 million women infected worldwide with HPV 16 and/or 18 before high-grade or cancerous cervical lesions develop.
This patent completes Genticel’s portfolio on the use of CyaA vectors for the treatment of advanced HPV-induced diseases, including cancer. It complements the company’s proprietary European patent No. 2061505 granted in 2012, which notably claims a pharmaceutical composition comprising a chemotherapeutic agent, a recombinant CyaA comprising a tumor-associated antigen and an adjuvant for the prevention or treatment of cancer.
This new patent covers antitumor therapies that include a recombinant CyaA protein comprising a tumor-associated antigen and a TLR (toll-like receptor) agonist in patients. TLR agonists have demonstrated immunological properties as adjuvants. Furthermore, it also covers the use of a CyaA vector in combination with chemotherapeutic agents, including cyclophosphamide which is used in combination with immunotherapy protocols to treat cancer.
Among the 300 million women around the world currently infected with HPV, 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer are identified each year and 275,000 women succumb to the disease. 70% of cervical cancer cases are caused by two HPV types. Genticel aims to eliminate them at an early stage with GTL001 (known in Europe as ProCervix), its first-in-class immunotherapeutic vaccine candidate. The company has already completed patient recruitment for the Phase II clinical trial of GTL001 in Europe.
Genticel’s versatile platform, Vaxiclase, is ideally suited for the development of immunotherapies against multiple infectious or cancerous diseases. Genticel’s second candidate, GTL002, is a multivalent HPV therapeutic vaccine designed with Vaxiclase. It targets the six most relevant HPV types in terms of global epidemiology and is currently in preclinical development. For more information, visit www.genticel.com.
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