A new HER2-Postive cancer vaccine demonstrated clinical benefit in a cohort of clinical trial patients with HER2+ cancers who had not previously received treatment with targeted HER2 agents, according to a press release from the American Association of Cancer Research.

The HER2+ vaccine is currently in clinical trials, with phase 1 trial data recently presented at the 2018 CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference.

Injectable vaccine. Source.

“Immunotherapy marshals the exquisite specificity of the immune system to destroy cancer, and some types may have potentially fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy,” Jay A. Berzofsky, MD, PhD, chief of the Vaccine Branch at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, said in the press release. “We are using a vaccine approach to generate an immune response to HER2, which is found at high levels on and drives the growth of several types of cancer, including breast, ovarian, lung, colorectal, and gastroesophageal cancers.”

The vaccine works by tailoring each vaccine with immune cells that are isolated from the patient’s blood. The researchers modified that immune-cells to target an immune response in HER2 cells, with the final vaccine product made up of “patient-derived dendritic cells genetically modified with an adenovirus to produce parts of the HER2 protein.” The vaccine is then administered between the layers of skin.

The clinical trial studied 11 patients with HER2+ cancers, with 54% demonstrating some kind of clinical response to the vaccine. In a single patient, the vaccine demonstrated a complete response lasting 89 weeks, while another patient had a partial response lasting 16 weeks. Additionally, four other patients demonstrated stable disease after receiving the vaccine.

“Our results suggest that we have a very promising vaccine for HER2-overexpressing cancers,” Berzofsky concluded. “We hope that one day the vaccine will provide a new treatment option for patients with these cancers.”