Oxford, UK – 2nd July 2019
Oxford Vacmedix UK Limited (OVM), the UK-based biopharma company focused on the development of cancer vaccines, announced today the award of an Innovate UK grant to CHAIN Biotechnology Ltd (CHAIN) and the University of Oxford to develop live biotherapeutics that support oral delivery for OVM’s recombinant overlapping peptide (ROP) cancer vaccines. The research will use CHAIN’s proprietary microbiome technology and the world-class research facilities in the University’s department of Oncology.
The project will initially focus on OVM-100 in a research project titled “Mucosal delivery of Clostridium spores encoding recombinant overlapping peptides (ROPs) of HPV antigen as therapeutic vaccines for cervical cancer”. This will bring together University of Oxford’s expertise and CHAIN’s innovative microbial delivery platform to establish the effectiveness of delivering ROPs to the colon for the treatment of cervical cancer.
Spun out from the University of Oxford, OVM holds an exclusive licence for the ROP technology. The technology uses the novel, proprietary platform of ROPs to design and develop therapeutic cancer vaccines and diagnostics with the potential for increased efficacy, lower costs, simpler regulatory pathways and synergy when used in combination with other immune-oncology agents. OVM is developing two cancer vaccines, OVM-100 and OVM-200, focusing on unmet clinical need. OVM-100 is an HPV vaccine targeted at cervical cancer. OVM-200 represents a new type of vaccine utilising survivin, a protein inhibitor of apoptosis, to target solid tumours.
Dr Shisong Jiang, Principal Investigator in the Department of Oncology and Founder of OVM, said:
“We are delighted to have this opportunity to work with CHAIN on this exciting project. The importance of effective and controlled delivery is key to the development of new cancer vaccine and we are very pleased to have support and funding from Innovate UK for this work on our immunotherapy cancer vaccines.”
Dr Edward Green, Chief Executive and Founder of CHAIN added:
“This project provides a further opportunity to exemplify our Clostridium-Assisted Drug Development (CADDTM) platform for targeted gut delivery of therapeutic peptides. We look forward to a successful collaboration with OVM and to establishing a combination approach that simplifies and accelerates the development of oral cancer vaccines providing significant patient benefits.”
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
William Finch, CEO, Oxford Vacmedix
T: +44 (0) 1865 742087 | M: +44(0)7769 903711 | E: wfinch@oxfordvacmedix.com
https://www.oxfordvacmedix.com
About Oxford Vacmedix
Oxford Vacmedix UK Ltd, based on the Oxford Science Park, UK, is a bio-pharma company that utilizes the novel proprietary platform technology of recombinant overlapping peptides (ROPs) invented by Dr Shisong Jiang. ROPs have been validated as a technology to stimulate broad and strong T cell immunity therefore forming a good platform for cancer therapeutic vaccines and diagnostics. The company is a spin-out of the University of Oxford and has extensive contacts and collaborations in China through Changzhou Bioscience that is using the ROP platform in both diagnostics and adoptive cell therapy.
For more information, please visit: www.oxfordvacmedix.com/
About CHAIN Biotech
CHAIN Biotechnology Ltd is a UK-based microbiome therapeutic company focused on the development and commercialisation of live biotherapeutic products (LBPs). LBPs are a new class of drug based on living bacteria found in the gut but engineered to deliver specific therapeutic molecules. We specialise in engineering Clostridia bacteria and our proprietary technology platform (CADDTM), based on a single bacterial species, supports multiple therapeutic products. CHAIN’s products address unmet clinical needs for safer, more effective and lower cost drugs. Treatments for diseases associated with the human gut microbiome have the potential to transform healthcare across many chronic and debilitating diseases. CHAIN was founded in 2014, by biotech entrepreneur Dr Edward Green and has labs at MediCity Nottingham with a head office in Marlow. CHAIN has assembled a highly experienced management team and Board comprising biotech and pharma leaders plus expert scientists with skills in microbiology, engineering biology and fermentation.
For more information, please visit: https://chainbiotech.com
CHAIN has been awarded two grants to support its therapeutic delivery platform from Innovate UK (IUK), the UK’s innovation agency. The grant-funded projects will focus on the development and testing of two new biotherapeutics using CHAIN’s proprietary delivery platform CADDTM. The projects build on successful IUK funded projects that were used to develop and validate the CADDTM platform. Platform expansion has begun under another IUK project, ‘Developing Clostridium as a Novel Secretion System for Therapeutic Peptides’, now in its final 12 months.
About the projects:
MICRoMED – ‘Microbial restoration of intestinal Metabolite balance for type 2 diabetes’ – aims to produce a natural metabolite of gut bacteria. This metabolite is lacking in patients suffering from type 2 diabetes. This is a 12-month proof of concept project that leverages our skills in metabolic pathway engineering of Clostridium bacteria. In the UK, 90% of 3.7 million diabetes patients suffer from type 2 diabetes, with a further 12 million at risk of developing the illness. Globally, over 400 million people worldwide have diabetes and its prevalence is rising in low-middle income countries.
The second project focuses on novel cancer vaccines, called ‘Mucosal delivery of Clostridium spores encoding recombinant overlapping peptides of HPV antigen as therapeutic vaccines for cancer’. This is a 12-month proof of concept project funded from the IUK Biomedical Catalyst and performed in collaboration with the University of Oxford. We aim to deliver antigenic peptides that stimulate an immune response against human papilloma virus that could lead to a cost-effective vaccine. The gut mucosa offers a novel route for immunisation. HPV is a common virus that will affect 8 in 10 people, largely without symptoms. High risk, sexually transmitted strains of HPV when untreated lead to cancer, the most common of which is cervical cancer. Approximately 3,100 cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed annually, almost all caused by HPV. Vaccines against HPV help the body clear the virus, reducing the risk of cancer development.
Both projects should deliver new live biotherapeutic products that exemplify our platform technology and demonstrate the broad functionality that can be achieved using an engineering approach. CHAIN’s CADDTM technology targeting the gut microbiome is highly differentiated with the potential to transform healthcare across a broad range of chronic and debilitating diseases.