Our Vision is to revolutionize immuno-oncology
using iNDUCED PLURIPOTENT STEM CELL-derived
onco-vaccine therapies.
A major advance in cancer therapy
Although significant progress has been made in the development of immunotherapies recently, their clinical application is still restricted to treating only a small number of cancers.
Classical cancer immunotherapies using DNA, RNA, or peptides induce an immune response against a small number of specific antigens. These antigens are found in cancer cells but not in Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs), which remain uneffected and survive. As they are the « roots » of the disease, CSCs persistence leads to tumor relapse and metastatic spread on or off therapy, and even several years after therapy cessation.
Our cancer vaccine therapy is different. IPSirius’ stem cell-based vaccines induce an immune response against several thousand distinct antigens found in cancer cells, in particular those in cancer with stemness features. This primes the patient’s immune system to attack a much wider range of tumor cells and eliminate CSCs. This results in a more effective treatment for the cancer, and reduce chance of the tumor regrowth after therapy.
As well as priming the patient’s immune system, our therapeutic products (termed IPVAC) modifies the tumor microenvironment (TME) by inhibiting the immune-suppressive cells found there, and by increasing tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, a major challenge for other current treatment strategies.
Supporting other therapies
IPVAC products will be used in combination with other immunotherapies to target the CSCs and other tumor cells which evade the other therapies.
A SCALABLE “off the shelf” therapy FOR CANCER
We are using clinical grade pluripotent stem cell lines which have the capacity to replicate almost indefinitely, to create a pipeline of immunotherapy products (IPVAC) which when administered to a patient will tackle CSCs, and reduce the risk of tumor relapse and metastases.
The same IPVAC product will be used for multiple patients, providing a fast, adaptable and inexpensive therapy.
Our first product, IPVAC 1.0, utilizes engineered stem cells (modified by a proprietary pharmacological treatment) which share neo-antigens with CSCs. When administered in the body, IPVAC 1.0 triggers a cytotoxic and memory immune response against multiple Embryonic Tumor-Associated-Antigens (TAA), expressed by CSCs which are in common with a large number of cancers, and acts on the tumor microenvironment.
Based on strong pre-clinical data, IPVAC 1.0 is a tissue-agnostic therapy, targeting all epithelial cancers with poor prognosis and a stemness common signature.
