DxVx, plans to make a license-in agreement of OVM-200 and conduct clinical trials in Asia
28 November 2023
DxVx announces today that it will conduct its own clinical trials of OVM-200, an anti-cancer vaccine from Oxford Vacmedix(OVM) by license-in agreement and develop further with its own new drug development knowledge. Currently, the vaccine has completed a Phase 1a clinical trial in the first half of this year and is expected to start a Phase 1b trial soon.
OVM-200 has achieved successful results in a Phase 1a clinical trial and a new publication in Advanced Therapeutics comprehensively reviews the rationale and preclinical results for OVM-200 both alone and in combination. A Phase 1b clinical trials are under discussion to be conducted in the UK by OVM and in Asia, including Korea and China, by Dx&Vx.
OVM-200 is a therapeutic vaccine that enters the body and kills cancer cells. Over time, even if new cancer cells arise, immune cells remember and eliminate the cancer cells.
In particular, the ROP (Recombinant Overlapping Peptide) technology used in OVM-200 cancer vaccines significantly enhances immunity and vaccine efficacy. In addition, the targeting of survivin(anti-apoptotic protein), which is closely related to cancers, and the fact that DxVx has a large number of experts with rich experience in the new drug development and commercialization are also considered to be differentiators.
OVM-200 is highly safe as it is a peptide vaccine. Vaccines based on mRNA or viral particles are not immune to the safety concerns highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, vaccines based on recombinant proteins have significant advantages in terms of stability, as their safety has been proven over a long period of time.
In addition, the method of selecting and targeting a single antigenic peptide only works for a limited number of HLAs(human leukocyte antigen), an identifier that helps the immune system distinguish itself from foreign substances, but in the case of peptide complexes, it is expected to increase treatment efficacy because it is likely to act on more diverse HLAs (about 30 types).
Furthermore, OVM's Recombinant Overlapping Peptides (ROP) platform technology has superior production and cost advantages over existing peptide complex technology, which produces and mixes multiple peptides. The ROP platform technology is a peptide complex technology that produces one long overlapping peptide, which is cleaved into individual peptides by human enzymes in vivo. It is therefore expected to have advantages in terms of CMC, production process, cost, etc.
DX&VX believes that if adequate data is collected showing that OVM-200 improves the prognosis of chemotherapy patients and prevents relapse, it will be also possible to develop a vaccine for cancer prevention.
Safety is paramount when it comes to preventive vaccines. Even a little toxicity is unacceptable in terms of safety, because it is a preventive vaccine to be given to healthy people who have not yet been diagnosed. OVM-200 is a traditional recombinant protein vaccine and has a very high likelihood of success because it is a type of vaccine that has a long history of clinical safety.
A DxVx official said that they plan to complete the license-in process soon and proceed with Phase 1b and Phase 2 clinical trials in major Asian countries (Korea, China and considering India in the future). They will try to launch it through an accelerated approval that will allow patients to benefit early from effective drugs before all clinical trials are completed around 2027. Of course, they are also considering collaborations with global Big Pharma if necessary in the future.
Dx&Vx is currently in the process of agreeing the licensing terms with OVM and coordinating the final details.
Meanwhile, OVM is a spin-off company from Oxford University in the UK, and Dx&Vx is the largest shareholder with a 43% stake.
