New Partnership Initiates Development of New Cancer Vaccines

 Two companies named Vedantra Pharmaceuticals and Neon Therapeutics have entered a partnership to begin cancer vaccine research. They have decided to do this collaborative work to further develop cancer vaccines that stimulate the body’s immune system and response, so healthy body cells expand and tumor cells can be specifically targeted and eliminated. Both companies have developed different technologies that they believe can be used together to fight tumors.

The chairman of Vedantra said that the partnership presents an opportunity to develop vaccines that may not have been possible if the companies did not decide to collaborate. Vedantra’s technologies are already good at stimulating the body’s immune responses, but both programs can be enhanced by the other.

Vedantra’s system can carry the antigens produced by Neon to T- cell activation sites. Antigens are what produce the body’s immune response, and T-cells are the cells that need to infiltrate the tumor in order to restrict its growth. These activation sites are good places for the development of CD-8 T-cells that are specifically designed to attack tumors.

The chairman of Neon thinks that this partnership could place them at the forefront of cancer vaccine development, a feeling that was agreed upon by the founder and scientific consultant of Vedantra.