Biopolymer Cancer Vaccine Technology

Background

Targeting the immune system and the use of personalised vaccines for cancer therapy is a growing field. Tumour associated antigens and neoantigens have gained growing interest for the development of personalised therapeutic cancer vaccines, enabling the specific targeting of tumour cells in individual patients. The neoantigen cancer vaccine market size in 2024 is relatively small and is currently estimated to be US$ 48.7 million. However, this market is expected to grow enormously in the next few years and is expected to have a market size of ~ US$ 1.3 billion by 2030 (predicted CAGR of 73.4%). Although over 100 tumour-specific neoantigens are in clinical trials, their application is still limited due to various challenges, including inadequate strategies to target heterogenous tumours, limited efficacy, and a high cost of personalised cancer vaccines. In addition, neoantigens used for cancer vaccines are often only weakly immunogenic and do not stimulate an effective immune response. Thus, new technologies addressing these limitations are urgently needed.

Technology Overview

Researchers at the Griffith University have developed novel cancer vaccines using engineered biopolymer particles (BP) based on a vaccine platform technology used for multiple indications (). The BPs are composed of a biocompatible and biodegradable biopolyester which has gained FDA approval for clinical use in humans for various applications, thus de-risking their use from a safety and regulatory standpoint. The BP vaccines are produced utilising a cell factory-based vaccine platform, using an endotoxin free E. coli production strain. This enables adaptive, cost-effective scalable vaccine manufacturing, aligning with industrial GMP manufacturing requirements, generating BP vaccines coated with (neo-)antigens of interest.

Preclinical in vitro and in vivo studies showed that these BPs are safe and able to increase the immunogenicity of coated antigens and peptides of interest not only for cancer vaccines but also other indications. This novel vaccine platform technology allows the development of precision-engineered cancer vaccines that can be adapted and optimised within weeks, providing fast access to personalised vaccines for individual patients.

Griffith University’s BP vaccines are capable of mediating effective long lasting anti-tumour activity through MHC I and MHC II antigen presentation, prolonged T cell priming leading to CD4+ and CD8+ T cell expansion in vivo and ex vivo. Researchers have showed that resting human dendritic cells (DCs) and activated DCs are capable of BP uptake mediating epitope presentation, with increased uptake when activated. Antitumour immunity of BP vaccine particles after subcutaneous immunisation with epitope-coated BPs has been shown in vivo/ex vivo producing long-lasting T cell immunity in mouse models generating anti-tumour immunity against different types of cancer, including melanoma, B cell lymphoma and breast and colon cancer ().

Further Details:

• Jenika, et al. npj vaccines. 2024; 9, 18.
• Pounraj, et al. Appl Mat Today. 2024; 38, 102238.

Opportunity

Griffith University is seeking to partner with a company that has the capability to further develop and bring this vaccine platform to market. Griffith University is offering an exclusive licence to the intellectual property, know-how and materials, and access to the research team for further joint R&D and consultancy.

The IP relating to manufacturing technology for the biopolymer vaccine processes are Griffith’s background IP, which is kept as secret know how (trade secret) as this is a platform technology with several field applications.