DCprime Presents Comprehensive Preclinical Results Supporting Lead Clinical Candidate DCP-001

DCprime, the front-runner in the field of relapse vaccines, today announced presentations of additional preclinical data sets for its lead program, DCP-001, at the 7th CCBIO Annual Symposium and the 2019 CIMT Annual Meeting. The data supports key product characteristics and sheds additional light on the mechanism-of-action of DCP-001, a whole cell-based vaccine derived from the company’s proprietary DCOne® human leukemic cell line. DCP-001 is currently studied in an international Phase II trial in AML patients who are ineligible for hematopoietic stem cell transplantations.

“While we are making constant progress evaluating DCP-001 in the clinic in AML and preparing additional trials in MDS and Multiple Myeloma, we continue to strengthen the body of preclinical data supporting this program,” commented Dr Jeroen Rovers, CMO of DCprime. “The preclinical results and animal models we have generated in our collaboration with the University of Bergen provide further insights into the vaccine’s mechanism-of-action and confirm several key product characteristics relevant to our approach. Overall, these data strongly support the rationale of DCP-001 as a relapse vaccine providing immune control over residual disease in hematological malignancies.”

DCOne cells endogenously express known and unknown tumor-associated antigens. In the DCP-001 manufacturing process, DCOne cells are differentiated and matured into cells with a mature dendritic cell phenotype, which is responsible for the strong immunogenic properties of the vaccine.

In its collaboration with the University of Bergen, Norway, DCprime has established a preclinical mouse model to study DCP-001 vaccinations in monotherapy and in combination therapy settings. The collaboration is supported by the Horizon 2020 EU grant AML-VACCiN. The data which were presented yesterday at the 7th CCBIO Annual Symposium showed that DCP-001 was able to suppress tumor growth in humanized immunocompetent mice. The results also demonstrated that the transformation of DCOne leukemic cells into DCP-001 leads to an immunogenic shift. Whereas the parental leukemic cells were poorly immunogenic, DCP-001 proved highly immunogenic, making it an attractive cancer vaccine candidate. Furthermore, DCP-001 induced the production of a broad range of pro-inflammatory cytokines in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) derived from healthy donors.

In preclinical studies, which will be presented at the upcoming 2019 CIMT Annual Meeting, DCprime was able to demonstrate that human antigen presenting cells (APCs) efficiently process DCP-001 through phagocytosis. These in vitro data suggest that in vivo, upon intradermal injection, DCP-001 will induce a strong inflammatory response, and is ingested by both resident and attracted host APCs, which subsequently prime tumor-reactive T cells. These data support the proposed mode of action whereby host APCs present DCP-001 antigens to the host immune system following intradermal vaccination.

The poster presentation at the upcoming 2019 CIMT Annual Meeting will take place on May 21, 2019 at the Rheingoldhalle Congress Center Mainz, Germany. To read the full abstract, please go to:An in vitro study of the interactions between the cell-based cancer vaccine DCP-001 and antigen presenting cells

Source: DCprime