Transgene and NEC extend collaboration to develop head and neck cancer vaccine

This new trial will build on ‘compelling’ first signs of efficacy and induction of specific T-cell responses in the ongoing phase 1 trial.

Both companies expect to present additional immunological and clinical data from this initial trial at a scientific conference in the first half of 2024.

Alessandro Riva, CEO and chairman of Transgene, commented: “We are pleased to announce the extension of our agreement with NEC, which marks a significant milestone in our collaboration. We are looking forward to continuing to treat patients in our clinical studies with our individualized cancer vaccine TG4050.

“The compelling initial phase I data presented with NEC at ASCO 2023 showed that all evaluable patients treated with TG4050 monotherapy developed a specific immune response and remained disease-free.

“Our joint clinical development plan builds on these promising data in a setting where there is no approved treatment to prevent patient relapse after adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. We believe that TG4050, by combining a powerful and immunogenic viral vector with an extremely sophisticated neoantigen selection tool, has the potential to address major medical needs in the adjuvant treatment of solid tumors.”

The treatment is based on Transgene’s viral vector myvac platform and powered by NEC’s AI capabilities for the identification and prediction of the most immunogenic neoantigens.

Masamitsu Kitase, head of healthcare and life sciences division at NEC, also said that she was ‘excited’ to embark on further development of TG4050, a ‘very promising asset’ for treating head and neck cancers.

“We are happy that our artificial intelligence and machine learning models help in predicting clinically meaningful neoantigens, which impact patient outcomes,” she added.