Ascend and 3M to collaborate on cancer vaccine

US multinational 3M Drug Delivery Systems has partnered with Melbourne-based immunotherapy biotech Ascend Biopharmaceuticals to work on cancer vaccines targeting solid tumour types which incorporate aspects of both companies’ technology.

The agreement will see the conjugation of 3M’s Toll-Like Receptor 7/8 (TLR7/8) agonist 3M-051 to Ascend’s ASN platform - an antigen-presenting, cell-targeting delivery technology that allows vaccine antigens and immune modulators to be selectively targeted to specialised antigen-presenting cells.

Ascend’s targeting platform is notable for its ability to efficiently enable cross-presentation and to allow the generation of a strong cytotoxic CD8+ T cell response to a vaccine antigen in addition to a strong antibody response. Many earlier generations of cancer vaccines had a tendency to generate predominantly CD4+ T cell responses but only weak CD8+ T cell responses.

“Our research has demonstrated encouraging clinical and immunological responses and we believe the chemical conjugation of a potent TLR agonist could confer further improvements to the previously observed clinical responses,” said Dr Clement Leong, CEO of Ascend Biopharmaceuticals. “The 3M TLR7/8 agonist 3M-051 is clearly a best-in-class compound and we are particularly excited in exploiting this with our cancer vaccine platform.”

The collaboration will evaluate the potency of 3M-051 conjugated to Ascend’s proprietary oxidised mannan, which is part of its ASN-004 vaccine candidate and forms the basis of the ASN platform. These preclinical immunogenicity models will last up to 12 months. 3M will provide good laboratory practices (GLP) and good manufacturing practices (GMP) material for the preclinical and clinical studies.

Ascend has two clinical-stage products which utilise the immune system to treat cancers: ASN-002, slated to enter Phase II clinical studies in skin cancer patients in 2014; and ASN-004, to be developed as treatment for breast cancer under a Phase Ib clinical study at a date to be determined.