Licence with Oxxon Pharmaccines

1st May 2009

Researchers in Oxford University's Department of Clinical Medicine have developed a new vaccine technology, based on the application of a modified adenovirus, which could help recognise and fight cancer cells and infection.

Oxxon Pharmaccines

This state-of-the-art development works by teaching the immune system how to recognise tumour cells or infected cells in disease including melanoma, malaria and hepatitis and respond, by producing large numbers of ‘killer T-cells’ to fight the specific disease condition.

The research centres around a T-cell sub-population, called CD8+, which clinical trials have shown to be important in the fight against certain infections and cancers. The scientists have developed an approach that involves immunisation with two different elements carrying a specific disease-related antigen. The first element, the ‘prime’, teaches the immune system to recognise the antigen. The second element, the ‘boost’, is based on a modified adenovirus that can no longer produce an infection. Once this viral vaccine boost has been introduced into the body, the immune system remembers the antigen and triggers the production of huge quantities of specific, effective CD8+ killer T cells. This results in a magnified immune response to cancer cells or infected cells, which could overwhelm and halt early disease in its tracks.

The vaccine approach has been licensed globally and exclusively to an Oxford University spin-out company, Oxxon Pharmaccines. It is envisaged that the adenovirus vaccine will work in conjunction with a range of priming agents that are currently being developed by the company and complement their existing programmes in melanoma and hepatitis B. Academic trials into a prime boost malaria vaccine, which works by recognising antigen protein fragments from the malaria parasite, are already underway in the Gambia, directed by Professor Adrian Hill of Oxford’s Department of Medicine.

Commenting on the vaccine technology and license, David Phillips, Oxxon’s CEO, said: “This innovative technology from Oxford University further broadens our portfolio of vaccination strategies for boosting T cell responses. It’s also a good example of how academia and commercial science can work together to bring scientific advances out of the laboratory and into the market where they can have a real effect on people’s lives.”

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