Cell-based gene therapy against cancer

 

With its cell-based gene therapy against cancer, MOLOGEN is pursuing an innovative approach to the treatment of cancer diseases which combines the complex platform technologies MIDGE® and dSLIM® in a single product. The mechanism of action for this therapeutic concept is based on inducing a cross-reaction of the patient’s immune system against the cancer cells that are produced by the body. Foreign cancer cells ( so-called allogeneic tumor cells) are used to activate the immune system in order to recognize and fight the patient’s own tumor cells. A prerequisite to that process is that a reaction to the allogeneic cancer cells was previously induced and the immune system learned what typical cancer cells look like. The allogeneic tumor cells are genetically modified prior to their injection into the patient using MIDGE® vectors and are then combined with dSLIM® immunomodulators as an immune booster (so-called adjuvant) in order to maximize the efficacy of this effect.

  

An effective and safe approach

The specific combination of genetically modified allogeneic cells with the immunomodulator dSLIM® activates the patient’s immune system in a very efficient manner. On the one hand, it triggers a specific immune response against the tumor-associated antigens (TAA) located on the modified tumor cells. On the other hand, a none-specific immune response is initiated that primarily activates so-called natural killer cells (NK-cells), which in turn can combat the body's own tumor cells more effectively. Cell-based gene therapy is a promising approach to overcome the immune system's fatal tolerance towards the cancer cells. It is a characteristic feature of cancer diseases that degenerate cells are not fully recognized by the immune system as foreign or malignant, leading to uninhibited growth of these cells. Treatments that are only aimed at a certain characteristic of a tumor type (meaning a very specific tumor-associated antigen, TAA) are mostly only successful in the short run. Tumor cells are often able to adjust to external influences by respective modification (mutation). As a result, the cancer cells can continue to proliferate and the therapeutic concept becomes ineffective. Unlike these therapeutic approaches, MOLOGEN  by using genetically modified allogeneic tumor cells pursues a highly complex mechanism of action using genetically modified allogeneic tumor cells. The allogeneic tumor cells do not just have one particular antigen but a multitude of tumor-associated antigens that also occur in the body's own cancer cells. This provides the immune system with the opportunity to attack the tumor in various ways. This therapeutic concept aims at making it more difficult or even impossible for the cancer cells to "escape".

 

MOLOGEN®, MIDGE® and dSLIM® are registered trademarks of MOLOGEN AG