Adamis Pharmaceuticals has announced an important addition to its intellectual property with receipt of a notice of allowance of patent claims supporting its cancer immunotherapy portfolio in the US.
Notice of allowance is the final step in the issuance of a patent.The company believes that this patent will significantly strengthen Adamis'cancer immunotherapy patent portfolio and will further support its TeloB-VAX vaccine technology.
Claims to a patent entitled"Composition and Method for Inducing and Enhancing a Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase-Reactive Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Response"have been allowed.
These include claims for peptides that induce or enhance a cytotoxic T cell immune response against the human tumor antigen telomerase reverse transcriptase.
TeloB-Vax is an important asset in Adamis'oncology pipeline.The technology forming the basis for the patent was discovered and developed by Dr Maurizio Zanetti at the University of California,San Diego(UCSD).
In 2011,Adamis licensed this technology from the Regents of the University of California as well as a complementary patent,"Cancer Immunotherapy and Diagnosis Using Universal Tumor Associated Antigens,Including Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase,"from the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.
These technologies constitute the basis of a novel cell-based cancer vaccine product candidate,TeloB-VAX,which has been shown to activate the body's natural defense system to stimulate an immune response against one of cancer's most common tumor markers,telomerase.
The vaccine utilizes the patient's own B cells as antigen producing and antigen presenting cells.The B cells present telomerase peptides to the T cells that then expand and search out and kill prostate cancer cells.
Adamis'TeloB-VAX vaccine technology is composed of the patient's own circulating B lymphocytes harboring a unique patented engineered plasmid DNA.The transfection procedure is'spontaneous',requiring no facilitating molecules or devices.After 60 minutes of incubation with the plasmid,the patient's own cells can be re-infused.
In a Phase I study already completed at UCSD in castrate resistant prostate cancer patients,the vaccine product was shown to be safe,non-toxic and immunogenic.Two injections of TeloB-VAX,spaced one month apart,was shown to induce a specific CD8 T cell response.More important,the T cells were shown to specifically kill prostate cancer cells.
Adamis Pharmaceuticals president and CEO Dr Dennis J Carlo noted at the J.P.Morgan Healthcare Conference last week,immunotherapy occupied much of the spotlight.
"We believe that our telomerase therapeutic cancer vaccine could prove to be important in the treatment of cancer.Harnessing and directing a systemic immune response that targets tumor cells throughout the body might be possible through the use of our vaccine technology.Telomerase is probably the closest to any universal tumor marker that we know of today,"Dr Carlo added.