Cancer vaccines make progress in combating disease
Source: http://www.masshightech.com/ Author: Lori Valigra, Mass High Tech correspondent Sen. Edward Kennedy’s death two years ago from the deadly form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), refocused attention on how slowly treatments have progressed since former President Richard Nixon declared the war on cancer in 1971. But a new form of treatment that goes beyond oncology drugs and surgery is now coming of age: cancer vaccines. At the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago — a major forum for cancer researchers — several companies and research groups reported progress on cancer vaccines, including a New England company with a shot for GBM. Agenus Inc. of Lexington reported its Prophage G-200 almost doubled the longevity of patients with recurring GBM to 11 months. That’s good news to patients with that particularly aggressive form of cancer, which also killed composer George Gershwin and music synthesizer legend Robert Moog. Vaccines represent a relatively new approach to fighting the spread of cancer, having appeared in the last decade. The basic concept is similar to a vaccine for a disease like measles: an injection in the arm induces an immune response that helps the body fight a particular pathogen, in this case, a cancer. An effective immune response would then shrink tumors and extend lives. Research and Markets estimates that the relatively new market for cancer vaccines could rise sharply to top $7 billion by 2015. The research company looked at six main categories of cancer vaccines: antigen/adjuvant, DNA, vector-based, tumor [...]