Breast cancer vaccine trial excites researcher

Danish biotechnology company Pharmexa has begun testing a new breast cancer vaccine on women in Britain and Denmark.

Dr Dana Leach, the company's manager of clinical development and immunopharmacology, told the 3rd European Breast Cancer Conference that the Auto-Vac vaccine targeted a protein called HER-2 which was overexpressed in many tumours. The vaccine was designed to boost the woman's immune response to produce killer T cells to attack the tumour and to make HER-2 antibodies.

"Our first objective is to test the safety of the vaccine, but we also want to make a preliminary evaluation of the vaccine's ability to raise an immune response," Dr Leach said.

HER-2 was also found in normal tissue so the body's immune system did not always respond to it. Auto-Vac was aimed at recognising the HER-2 in cancer cells and destroying them while ignoring normal tissue.

"It is clear immunotherapy can work."

Dr Leach said the company would test the safety and immune response of 27 women with advanced cancer at four centres in Denmark and two in Britain.

The women would be given three injections of the vaccine and results were expected by the end of the year.

Dr Leach hoped the vaccine would reduce the size of the tumour.

If effective, he believed it could be used with other cancer treatments. Animal studies of the vaccine have shown it produces an immune response without any toxic side-effects.

"Although it is early days yet," Dr Leach said, "anytime that you can successfully take a new cancer vaccine into the clinic it is an important and exciting event."

- REUTERS

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