Posters –
Infectious diseases and Vaccines
NAME OF THE PROJECT
NAME OF THE MAIN CONTACT
ORGANISATION NAME
LTVAX, a therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer treatment based on BacVac
Laurent BUFFAT
APCure
APCure is a company developing immunotherapy products based on the BacVac
technology, a safe, bacterial vector that produces and delivers proteins of interest into
target cells.
BacVac (Bacterial Vaccine) technology is based on a bacterial vector (derived from
Pseudomonas aeruginosa), made safe for use in clinic, and able to induce a strong and
effective immune response. This technology has great potential in immunotherapy, for
the treatment of tumors and infectious diseases.
BacVac efficiently generates a strong T cell response by delivering the two key signals
to antigen presenting cells (APC), in vivo:
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The disease-specific marker (antigen): BacVac has a molecular machinery,
similar to a syringe, that efficiently injects proteins to target cells. BacVac is
capable of producing and delivering one or more disease-associated antigens
into APC in vivo.
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The danger signal: BacVac is a bacterial vector, therefore naturally detected as
a danger by the APC.
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BacVac is a class 1 bacterial vector, safe for the patient as well as for the
environment. This has been obtained by making the bacterial strain less
pathogenic (toxins that contribute the most to pathogenicity were removed)
and unable to replicate in the host. The safety of BacVac has been extensively
proved in mouse model and confirmed in non- human primates.
Technology
BacVac pharmaceutical development is simple: the BacVac-based product is a simple
bacterial culture. Chemically defined medium and storage conditions have already been
identified.
Customers / Target market
The BacVac-based technology platform can generate new immunotherapy products,
delivering one or more antigens and for the treatment of tumors or infectious
diseases of humans or animals.
APCure aims to become a leading developer of immunotherapy products. The market can
be overall estimated at several tenths of B$ per year.
The competitors of the BacVac technologies are all the alternative immunotherapy
approaches that aim to induce a CD8+ T cell response. Overall, we are convinced that
BacVac has critical advantages over these technologies in terms of safety, efficacy and
simplicity of pharmaceutical development.
Industry and competitors
There are several approaches existing:
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Dendritic cells (DC)-based therapy: DC-based cancer therapy relies on the ex
vivo generation of DC from monocytes collected from the patient, pulsed with
antigens (peptides, whole proteins, tumor lysate...) and activated before reinfusion to the patient
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Adjuvantized, Peptide-based therapy: tumor antigens have been tested for
immunotherapy, in combination with adjuvants.
Financing need / Commercial
opportunity
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Nanoparticles: the protein delivery has been attempted by conjugation with
nanoparticles. These carriers can co-deliver danger signals, inducing the
maturation of the APC that is crucial for the delivery of the antigen. Indeed,
these technologies have shown promising efficacy results.
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Adjuvantized, DNA-based therapy: transfer of antigen-encoding DNA
combined to adjuvants has been tested.
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Viral vectors: The immune response induced via transfer of nucleic acids has
been significantly improved by using viral vectors
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Listeria-based vectors: two american companies (Advaxis and Aduro-biotech)
are employing Listeria monocytogenes vector. They have both completed
phase I clinical trials. Listeria physiologically enter host cells and escape from
endosome to the cytoplasm. These technologies smartly induce the bacterial
disintegration once reached the cytoplasm, with consequence release of the
TAA in this cell compartment.
APCure is developing the first BacVac-based product (LTVAX) and for that is seeking a 8
M€ investment : 1M€ for the pre-clinical phase, 2M€ for the Phase I clinical trial and
5M€ for the phase II clinical trial.
APCure is also looking for investors and/or partnerships for the (co-) development of
other BacVac based products for the treatment of infectious diseases or tumors, for
application in human or animal health.
Secured intellectual property
APCure has the exclusive, worldwide license for the BacVac technology, which is covered
by two patent families.
IP – Patent situation
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The first patent family covers the tag (S54) that permits the delivery of
antigens by the bacterial vector (FR20030013286 and related).
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The second patent family covers the attenuation process in order to make
BacVac safe for application in immunotherapy (EP113066369 and related).
LTVAX product is ready to enter pre-clinical and pharmaceutical development.
Future steps / Milestones
After the agreement with partners and/or investors on the target of the next BacVac
product, the APCure team will generate this new product and tests of efficacy will be
started in the suitable animal model.
No particular change in the safety of the new products and of the production process
are expected relative to LTVAX. In fact, safety and production parameters are
expected to be linked to the bacterial and not to the antigen. For these reasons,
bringing new BacVac-based products to the market will be fast.
Further reading
N/A
Contact person
Dr Laurent BUFFAT, CEO, APCure, laurent.buffat@apcure.com
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