Immunovaccine, Vaxil Enter Cancer Vax-Pact

Immunovaccine, Inc. has signed a collaborative research agreement with Vaxil BioTherapeutics to explore the efficacy of Vaxil’s cancer antigens in Immunovaccine’s DepoVax vaccine enhancement platform.

“Vaxil has an innovative approach for identifying cancer antigens that get presented more efficiently by the MHC molecules. Vaxil’s long peptides are good candidates for formulation in our DepoVax platform making this an interesting research partnership,” said Dr. Marc Mansour, vice president of R&D at Immunovaccine.

“In preclinical studies, the DepoVax delivery platform has a demonstrated ability to enhance vaccines, generating a prolonged immune response. We believe that this could fit well with our products and we look forward to making strong advances together in developing the next generation of cancer therapeutics,” said Dr. Lior Carmon, founder and chief executive officer of Vaxil.

Vaxil, based in Israel, is a developer of novel T-cell synthetic vaccines for both therapeutic and prophylactic use. The company’s lead product, ImMucin, an anti-MUC1 therapeutic cancer vaccine, has received regulatory approval to begin Phase I/II trials in Multiple Myeloma patients.

Immunovaccine Inc., based in Canada, is a clinical stage vaccine development company focused on the commercialization of its DepoVax vaccine delivery technology. The company’s lead cancer vaccine DPX-0907 is in a Phase I trial in the U.S.