Mission Statement
Vaccinogen is dedicated to reducing cancer progression and recurrence, following standard of care surgery, by using personalized vaccines designed to help each patient’s immune system identify and destroy residual tumor cells. Cancer vaccine development was a major challenge over the last two decades and failed badly because the vaccine consisted of off the shelf agnostic tumor cells and/or antigens. Clearly with what is now known about tumor genomic heterogeneity, it is no longer reasonable to treat a heterogeneous disease with a homogeneous treatment. More and more attention is now being given to personal treatment processes alone or in combination with other forms of passive immunotherapy.
What Makes the Difference?
Most cancer vaccines were deployed as a primary therapy against advanced disease. We now understand established tumors create an environment which protects them from the immune system.
OncoVAX is used post-surgically to kill cancer cells the surgeons scalpel may have left behind. This “minimal residual disease is responsible for the tumor recurrence in 33% of Stage II colon cancer patients. These remaining cells are susceptible to immune surveillance and destruction because they have yet to form established tumors.
OncoVAX is made for the patient by the patient. This personalized approach sets OncoVAX apart. We let the patient’s immune system determine what is clinically important and exploit those case-by-case differences. While off-the-shelf cancer vaccines fail because of tumor genomic diversity, Vaccinogen is embracing it.