New Colon Cancer Vaccine to Enter Phase I Trial for Advanced Stage Treatment

A company named Treos Bios has a new vaccine that has just been cleared to enter trials for treating advanced cancer of the colon. The new vaccine is called PolyPEPI 1018. The drug was just approved by the USA Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be moved into a category of investigational new drugs. The studies for this vaccine will be done in Rochester, Minnesota and Pisa, Italy.

Participants in the study will receive a single dose of the new vaccine and will then be monitored by the researchers for general maintenance. The goal is to evaluate the safety of PolyPEPI 1018, while also judging how the immune system responds to it.

The executive chairman of Treos said their goal is to find a new therapy for the colorectal cancer patients because these patients face a grim prognosis with rather limited options for treatment. He said that this upgrade to the status of investigational new drug was an important milestone for the company.

The Treos team claims to have developed a mathematical prediction that can determine if a particular treatment will be effective for a given cancer patient. It can also target specific cells during treatment to kill as many cancer cells as possible while doing little harm to healthy cells.

This is not the first time Treos has joined the fight against cancer. They have done pre-trial development on vaccines for up to seven other cancers. They feel PolyPEPI 1018 may be there strongest one yet, because it contains six different proteins which cause a response from T-cells, which are the cells commonly used to fight colorectal cancer.

They say they have spent years studying and developing this vaccine, and Treos believes they are now one step closer to helping cancer patients who have been non responsive to other therapies. Additionally, the mathematical prediction system minimizes safety risks for those patients that decide to use PolyPepi 1018 because their immune response can be anticipated. A Treos spokeswoman also said it helps to cut down on the time needed to develop vaccines because they have a better understanding of what cells they need to attack.