An article recently published in Nature Communications by cecava’s co-founder, Saskia Biskup (MD, PhD), describes 173 patients diagnosed with glioblastoma who received a fully personalized neoepitope-based peptide vaccination in addition to their treatment regimen. The data show that the personalized immunotherapy approach is feasible in a clinical setting and, most notably, well tolerated. Importantly, patients who developed an immune response against multiple neoantigens had a significant survival benefit compared to those who showed only a weak or no immune response.
cecava’s co-founder Saskia Biskup states: “Fortunately, many of the described patients are alive and grateful that the data is now available to the scientific community. The hope is that one day all those affected will have access to individualized immunotherapies. Our data is certainly an important step in this direction.”
cecava now aims to confirm the promising results from this peer-reviewed publication. For this purpose, cecava currently prepares a controlled clinical trial in which glioblastoma patients will obtain up to 20 neoepitope peptides which are derived from the patient-individual tumor mutations. The aim of this investigation is to obtain marketing authorization for the new treatment concept to ensure that as many patients as possible can benefit from the new treatment in the near future.
About cecava
cecava is a biopharmaceutical immuno-oncology company which was founded as a spin-out of CeGaT GmbH (Tübingen, Germany) with the mission to develop personalized neoepitope-based cancer vaccines. For cecava’s therapeutic approach, the clinically most relevant neoepitopes are derived from patient-individual tumor mutations using the company’s proprietary in silico pipeline. The neoepitope peptides are synthesized, formulated into vaccines and injected into the skin of the respective patient. Through the vaccination, the power of the patient’s immune system is unleashed to recognize and destroy tumor cells presenting the neoepitopes on their surface. The Tübingen-based company currently prepares first clinical trials for several tumor indications to obtain marketing authorization for the innovative treatment concept.
