AustCancer gets commercialisation advice

Perth cancer therapeutic developer Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU) has engaged Intersuisse Corporate to advise it on a strategy for commercialising its Pentrix anti-cancer vaccine.

Phase Ib/IIa clinical trials that began at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital last November have confirmed that the vaccine induces a potentially life-saving antibody response in cancer patients recovering from surgery, or from radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

According to AustCancer, Intersuisse Corporate is helping it to evaluate several commercialisation strategies.

They include licensing, a joint venture, partial or total sale of the projects, and a merger or acquisition. AustCancer's MD, Dr Alistair Cowden, says his company is continuing its discussions with several companies about possible mergers.

AustCancer's Pentrix vaccine exploits a unique backdoor strategy that it hopes will direct a powerful immune response against tumours and any stray cancerous cells that evade surgery or conventional cancer therapies.

In more than 50 per cent of cancers, the event that finally tips a cell into cancerous growth is a mutation to the key tumour-suppressor gene P53.

P53 normally monitors cells for dangerous levels of mutation. Beyond a certain threshold, it initiates apoptosis -- a genetic cascade that shuts down and kills the mutant cell.

A mutation to P53 itself can jam the apoptosis mechanism, allowing the mutant cell to grow and proliferate out of control. This is why P53 mutations appear so frequently in common cancers.

The pattern of mutation is not completely random -- the Pentrix vaccine contains a cocktail of eight peptides (protein fragments) that mimic the most common mutations in the P53 protein.

Antibodies directed against the vaccine's peptides cross-react with any matching peptide sequences in mutant P53 molecules. While P53 is normally expressed in the cell's interior, any mutation causes it to be displayed on the surface of the cancerous cell, where it becomes visible to the immune system.

The immune system makes antibodies against the mutant P53 peptides, earmarking the cancerous cell for destruction by hunter-killer T-lymphocytes.