Scancell member of team shortlisted for CRUK award

RNS Number : 2383E

Scancell Holdings Plc

08 February 2018

 

8 February 2018

Scancell Holdings Plc

("Scancell" or the "Company")

Scancell a member of high profile team shortlisted for Cancer Research UK's prestigious Grand Challenge award

Highlights

·      Grand Challenge award recognises research proposals that tackle some of the toughest questions in cancer

·      Team's proposal seeks to leverage a tumour vaccine approach to build a blueprint for effective personalised therapies for patients with most types of cancer

·      Prof. Lindy Durrant, Chief Scientific Officer of Scancell, to lead the multidisciplinary team of eminent cancer immunotherapy scientists, in partnership with leading biotechnology companies

·      Novel vaccine candidates generated from Scancell's proprietary Moditope^® platform form central element of approach

·      Shortlisting of proposal represents a significant scientific endorsement of Scancell's technology

Scancell Holdings plc, ('Scancell' or the 'Company') the developer of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, is proud to announce that an international, multi-disciplinary team of the leading cancer immunotherapy scientists in Europe and the US, led by Prof. Lindy Durrant, Chief Scientific Officer of Scancell, and in partnership with Genentech, BioNtech and ISA pharmaceuticals¹, has been shortlisted to the final stages of Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge² - an ambitious series of £20 million global grants tackling some of the toughest questions in cancer research.  The team will collaborate on a project entitled "Project Blueprint: Eradicating established tumours with unique cancer vaccines".

The Grand Challenge award aims to revolutionise how cancer is diagnosed, prevented and/or treated by providing international multi-disciplinary teams the freedom to evaluate novel approaches, at scale, in the pursuit of life changing discoveries.

Project Blueprint aims to eliminate tumours by treating patients with specific vaccines.  Prof. Lindy Durrant will lead an international world-class team to investigate the full potential of the tumour vaccine concept by building blueprints for an effective therapy for patients with most types of cancer.  The project focus will be on head and neck cancer, glioblastoma, lung, and pancreatic cancer - all of which currently have a poor prognosis - in which treatment with Modi-3, a product generated from Scancell's Moditope^® platform will be assessed alongside vaccines targeting new mutations within individual patients' tumours.

Each team receives seed-funding of up to £30,000 to draft their full research proposal with the winners announced in autumn 2018.  This is the second round of Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge award and in 2017 four teams were awarded up to £20 million each³.

Prof. Lindy Durrant, Chief Scientific Officer, Scancell, and Principal Investigator of Project Blueprint, said:  "We are thrilled to be on the CRUK Grand Challenge shortlist.  This brings us one step closer to delivering our cancer vaccine blueprint.  We believe this approach will provide an effective, novel therapy and facilitate the development of a comprehensive strategy of combinatorial cancer treatment for patients with most types of cancer.  Our unique academic-biotech-clinical partnership, facilitating access to reagents and clinical trials, positions us for success in this space."

Dr Cliff Holloway, Chief Executive Officer, Scancell, commented:  "We are very excited to be an integral member of the team shortlisted for this prestigious award.  If successful, this significant, non-dilutive funding will allow us to extend the utility of our Moditope^® platform to develop a new vaccine, Modi-3, in a range of cancers beyond those targeted by our other Moditope candidates, Modi-1 and Modi-2.  This project also allows our technology to be further validated by an exceptional team of scientists.  Project Blueprint envisages a future in which every cancer patient will be offered, as a standard-of-care, a therapeutic vaccine that is tailored to their genetic and antigenic profile".

Dr Iain Foulkes, executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK, said:  "Round two of Grand Challenge is proving to be incredibly inspiring and the ambitious applications reflect the quality of global researchers this initiative has attracted to beat cancer sooner.  We're delighted with the teams we've shortlisted and look forward to hearing more about how they plan to tackle the toughest challenges in cancer research."

Dr Rick Klausner, chair of Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge advisory panel, said:  "The challenges set for Grand Challenge have once again attracted some of the best researchers in the world.  I'm looking forward to see how global collaboration could bring together diverse expertise, invigorate areas of research, and overcome barriers in ways that aren't happening at this point in time."

For Further Information:

Scancell
Dr John Chiplin, Chairman Dr Cliff Holloway, CEO	Scancell Holdings Plc	[phone]
Freddy Crossley (Corporate Finance) Tom Salvesen (Corporate Broking)	Panmure Gordon & Co	[phone]
Mo Noonan/Simon Conway	FTI Consulting	[phone]
Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge
Stephanie McClellan	Cancer Research UK	[phone]

1.   Project Blueprint Team

Prof LG Durrant	University of Nottingham  Scancell Ltd., Nottingham
Prof Sahin	TRON, Mainz BioNTech, Mainz
Prof Melief	University of Leiden ISA pharmaceuticals, Leiden
Prof Mellman	Genentech, South San Francisco
Prof Cerundulo	University of Oxford
Prof Balachandran	Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York  Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York
Prof de Vries	Radboud University, Nijmegen
Prof Platten	German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg University Hospital Mannheim Heidelberg University
Prof Rammensee	Eberhard-Karls University Tuebingen
Dr Benham	University of Durham
Prof Ottensmeier	University of Southampton
Prof Jaeger	National Center for Tumor Diseases University Medical Center Heidelberg  German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg
Prof Pandurangan	La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology
Prof Mehanna	University of Birmingham

2.   See CRUK website for more information: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/how-we-deliver-research/grand-challenge-award 

3.   These teams are working to identify preventable causes of cancer; creating virtual maps of tumours; preventing unnecessary breast cancer treatment; and studying tumour metabolism from the atomic to the tumour level. See previously funded awards: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/how-we-deliver-research/grand-challenge-award/previously-funded-teams 

About Scancell

Scancell is developing novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer based on its ImmunoBody® and Moditope® technology platforms.

Scancell's first ImmunoBody®, SCIB1 is being developed for the treatment of melanoma. Data from the Phase 1/2 clinical trial demonstrate that SCIB1, when used as monotherapy, has a marked effect on tumour load, produces a melanoma-specific immune response and highly encouraging survival trend without serious side effects. In patients with resected disease there is increasing evidence to suggest that SCIB1 may delay or prevent disease recurrence.

Scancell's ImmunoBody® vaccines target dendritic cells and stimulate both parts of the cellular immune system: the helper cell system where inflammation is stimulated at the tumour site and the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte or CTL response where immune system cells are primed to recognise and kill specific cells.

Pre-clinical data on a combination of SCIB1 or SCIB2 and checkpoint inhibition (blockade of the PD-1 or CTLA-4 immune checkpoint pathways) have shown enhanced tumour destruction and significantly longer survival times than when either treatment was used alone.

Scancell has also identified and patented a series of modified epitopes that stimulate the production of killer CD4+ T cells that destroy tumours with minimal toxicity. The Directors believe that the Moditope® platform could play a major role in the development of safe and effective cancer immunotherapies in the future.

About Cancer Research UK

·      Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.

·      Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.

·      Cancer Research UK receives no funding from the UK government for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on vital donations from the public.

·      Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years.

·      Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.

·      Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.

·      Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.

For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

 

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