A startup is developing the first vaccine to target patients before they develop

cancer.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 2011BY COURTNEY HUMPHRIES E-mail|Audio »|Print
Most cancer vaccines are intended to rally a patient's immune system to fight ca
ncers that have already progressed. But the startup company OncoPep, based in No
rth Andover, Massachusetts, is developing a vaccine designed to prevent one kind
of cancer multiple myeloma by treating patients who have only a precursor of the di
sease.
Multiple myeloma is a cancer of blood plasma cells. It develops when abnormal pl
asma cells in bone marrow multiply and accumulate, eventually damaging bones and
other tissues in the body, and finally overwhelming the immune system. Currentl
y, treatments can extend the lives of patients with the cancer but not cure it.
The company's approach grew out of research by Kenneth Anderson, Nikhil Munshi,
and Jooen Bae at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The researchers dep
loyed a combination of peptides small pieces of protein that are known to be specifi
c to multiple myeloma cells and are important for their survival. The goal is to
train the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells bearing these pept
ides; the vaccine would also contain substances designed to boost immune respons
e.
Plans call for the vaccine to be administered to people diagnosed with smolderin
g multiple myeloma, a condition in which plasma cells are unusually abundant and
produce abnormal proteins but cause no symptoms of disease. Currently, patients
with SMM are not treated. Although a majority of them go on to develop symptoma
tic cancer, it may take many years. Anderson hopes that the ability to detect th
e cancer in this early phase will make possible early, effective intervention. "
The idea would be to prevent the development of an active cancer," he says. Admi
nistering the vaccine to patients before they have received other, possibly debi
litating cancer treatments, and while their immune systems are healthy, may give
it a better chance of working.

Doris Peterkin, CEO of OncoPep, says that like several other experimental cancer
vaccines in development, this one will be matched to people with a particular i
mmune-system type: HLA type A2, the most common type in the U.S. Peterkin says t
he vaccine is most likely to be effective in these patients because the peptides
are have a better chance of triggering an immune response in them.
Ronald Levy, an oncologist and cancer researcher at Stanford University, says th
at despite the advantages of vaccinating early, targeting this early stage of th
e disease may pose practical problems in testing the vaccine. Although nearly 80
percent of patients with SMM go on to develop multiple myeloma, they do so at a
rate of only about 10 percent per year so it may take a while to collect enough p
atients to test the vaccine. And limiting the vaccine to people with a particula
r HLA type will narrow the already small field. Levy says that the ultimate test
of the vaccine's success will be how well its chosen peptides provoke a specifi
c immune response against the cancer, which has been the challenge for all pepti
de-based cancer vaccines.