Neon Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology company developing neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines and T cell therapies to treat cancer, has announced the publication of an article in Nature presenting initial feasibility, safety, immunogenicity and clinical outcomes for a personalized neoantigen vaccine in patients with adjuvant melanoma. The article entitled ‘An immunogenic personal neoantigen vaccine for patients with melanoma’ (DOI 10.1038/nature22991) demonstrates the validity of the neoantigen vaccine approach as an effective immunotherapy.

Senior author is Catherine Wu, MD, Associate Professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Neon Therapeutics founder, working closely with Nir Hacohen, PhD, Institute Member at the Broad Institute, Director of Cancer Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Neon Therapeutics founder, and Ed Fritsch, PhD, now Chief Technology Officer and founder at Neon Therapeutics. Lead authors are Patrick Ott, MD PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, and Zhuting Hu, PhD, post-doctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

“This research shows that it is feasible to produce peptide-based personalized neoantigen vaccines, and these vaccines can generate immune responses with reliability and potency,” said Catherine Wu, MD. “In this study, over 70% of all peptides successfully generated measurable CD4 and/or CD8 T cell responses. In addition, while patient numbers are limited, the initial clinical data is intriguing and worthy of exploration beyond the adjuvant setting into patients with active disease with immuno-oncology combinations.”

“The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has laid an important foundation for our work at Neon Therapeutics by demonstrating that this first-generation personalized neoantigen vaccine is safe, feasible and capable of eliciting strong T-cell responses,” said Richard Gaynor, MD, president of research and development at Neon Therapeutics. “Our lead clinical program, NEO-PV-01, builds upon these achievements by using next-generation bioinformatics and an industrialized supply chain. NEO-PV-01 is now being studied in combination with a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor in a trial involving patients with metastatic cancer. We expect to soon begin additional clinical trials studying NEO-PV-01 and neoantigen-based products from other Neon Therapeutics programs, to further develop novel therapies for patients in need.”