• Three days before World Cancer Day, biotech Transgene and the Oncopole of Toulouse have unveiled the first results of their clinical study on the very first French therapeutic vaccine against cancer.

  • The doses are manufactured in a few months to specifically arm the patient against his own tumor.

  • The initial objective is to prevent recurrences of “head and neck” cancers.

  • After vaccination and follow-up of ten patients, the results are “encouraging”.

On January 15, 2021, a patient from the Toulouse Oncopole in remission from throat cancer became the very first French person to receive a dose of a "personalized" vaccine specially designed to arm his immune system against the unique characteristics of his tumor.

The objective was above all to prevent a possible relapse which, for ENT cancers, of which 15,000 cases are diagnosed each year in France, occurs in approximately half of patients “within 2 to 3 years”, according to oncologist Jean- Pierre Delord.

Two years later, ten have received their tailor-made vaccine designed by the French biotech Transgene.

“And, for the moment, none has relapsed” announced this Wednesday the Toulouse professor in charge of this first clinical study.

“We are very happy with these results which are another encouraging sign,” he added.

Another sign now being the certainty that this vaccine is “very well tolerated” by patients, apart from the usual small “inflammatory redness”.

Tackle hidden cancer cells

The product is inoculated with a viral vector.

This is the only classic aspect of this “innovative treatment”.

Transgene uses DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence to manufacture individualized doses in “three to four months”.

"With this therapeutic vaccine, we teach the immune system how and where to attack the cancer of each patient", specifies Hedi Ben Brahim, the general manager of the company based near Strasbourg.

Furthermore, while most new treatments are developed on patients in the acute phase of their disease, this comes at the very end: after surgery and after conventional treatment with chemo or radiotherapy, but also after the recovery phase. reconstruction and repair of the damage caused by these "head-neck" cancers.

"The idea,



Vaccinated patients are then monitored through regular blood tests to ensure that their boosted immune system is on standby, and that a specially trained army of [killer] T cells is ready to fight at the slightest warning sign. .

“We are now convinced that we will know how to protect patients, prolong their survival and why not cure them”, assures Maha Ayyoub, the immunologist in charge of this follow-up.

“A tremendous hope” in patients

While Moderna and BioNTech have also embarked on the race for therapeutic vaccines against cancer, and on the strength of the first results obtained, Transgene announces the launch this year of “a phase 2 clinical study”, including “more patients”.

For now, there is no medicine to prevent cancer relapses.

And on the side of the patients and their relatives, the expectation is immense.

"This vaccine gives rise to tremendous hope", explains Sabrina Le Bars, co-founder of the Corasso association which supports people affected by cancer, in particular "rare" cancer of the head and neck, which are characterized by a significant number mutations and are responding less well than others to immunotherapy so far.

She went through this ordeal in 2010, when she was 29 and six months pregnant.

She knows all about the difficulties in rebuilding herself but also the stress generated by the anxiety of recurrence.

"You have this sword of Damocles above your head, she confides, the one that always makes you wonder if we'll be there for the next Christmas,

if we will see the first steps of his son or if we will be able to support his daughter when she passes the bac”.

So, "to lighten the weight of this sword", for her, it is simply unexpected.

Health

Toulouse: Faster, more precise, this super-scanner wants to "revolutionize" the management of cancers

Health

Cancer: The French say they are informed but 23% think that wine can limit the risk

  • Health

  • Cancer

  • Innovation

  • Vaccine

  • Toulouse

  • Occitania

  • Strasbourg

  • Great East