Interdisciplinary consortium receives grant to develop next-generation cell-based cancer vaccines

Cell-based cancer vaccines are revolutionizing the treatment of previously incurable cancers. Access to these promising therapies is limited by the high costs of manufacturing at centralized locations. Saint-Gobain Life Sciences, Kanyr Pharma Inc., the RI-MUHC and McGill University have formed a new interdisciplinary consortium to make this technology more accessible. In this project, dendritic cell cancer vaccines will be generated in Saint-Gobain’s VueLife® “C” Series FEP bags.

These single-use culture containers are designed by Saint-Gobain to provide a closed systems approach to cell culture and cell manufacturing, allowing for a seamless translation of bioprocesses from R&D towards clinical-scale and commercial phase production.

In a previous collaboration between Saint-Gobain and McGill University, FEP bags were compared to conventional polystyrene culture vessels and no significant differences in functional dendritic cell production were identified. In this expanded collaboration, the consortium will implement Kanyr Pharma’s patented ImmunyrTM technology to obtain pharmacologically-activated dendritic cells with improved cytokine secretion profiles using a proprietary small inhibitor of key phosphatase enzymes. The ImmunyrTM technology was developed by Kanyr Pharma to activate each patient’s own immune system to target several types of cancer.

Using the ImmunyrTM kit, Professor Corinne Hoesli and Professor Pierre-Luc Girard-Lauriault in the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill University will produce pharmacologically-activated dendritic cells in the VueLife® cell culture bags. To optimize culture conditions, the team will study and modulate protein-surface and cell-surface interactions in realistic bioprocessing conditions to accelerate clinical translation.

We anticipate that these technologies will help support cancer immunotherapy clinical trials led by the Cell Therapy Laboratory at the RI-MUHC directed by Dr. Pierre Laneuville and Dr. Linda Peltier. This project will propel the use of ImmunyrTM towards several cancer vaccine therapeutic applications, and further establish VueLife® bags as a leading technology for cellular therapy.

This project is supported by a $924,000 grant from NSERC, MEDTEQ and MITACS. Several trainees will work at the interface between industry, academia and the clinic to become future leaders in the cellular therapy field.