SANTA BARBARA, CA – May 26, 2021 – CancerVax, Inc., a developer of immunotherapy cancer treatments that use the body’s immune system to fight cancer, today announced that it has entered into a sponsored research agreement with the University of California Los Angeles (“UCLA”) to research and develop an immunotherapy breakthrough targeted at treating Ewing sarcoma. This is a rare but deadly soft tissue and bone cancer that primarily affects children and young adults and for which there is no current FDA approved treatment to prevent recurrence.
This 12-month research program with UCLA commenced on May 12, 2021, under the direction of Principal Investigator, Dr. Satiro De Oliveira and co-Principal Investigators, Dr. Noah Federman and Dr. Steven Jonas from the Department of Pediatrics, Hematology & Oncology, UCLA Medical Center. The program will focus on developing effective immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell and custom antibodies for Ewing sarcoma.
This program expands on the preliminary laboratory work done at UCLA by leveraging outside commercial-grade immunotherapy development processes and services. We believe the resulting technology will be able to target other cancers such as adrenal cancer and brain cancer, as well as enabling the development of other immunotherapies, vaccines and drugs.
CancerVax has also entered into a Letter of Intent with UCLA that gives the Company the exclusive right to negotiate a license to the pre-existing patent application “Method of Treating Ewing Sarcoma.”
“We are thrilled to work with Dr. Satiro and the team at UCLA and share the mutual goal of developing an immunotherapy breakthrough targeted at treating Ewing sarcoma,” said Lindsay Mann, CEO of CancerVax. “This disease in the second most common type of bone cancer in children with a current survival rate of only 20-35% if the disease has spread when diagnosed.”
Mr. Mann concluded, “Our mission is to significantly improve the clinical outcomes of cancer patients through the development of innovative and effective cancer immunotherapy treatments and drugs by collaborating with leading medical researchers and clinicians.”
CancerVax, Inc. is developing immunotherapy cancer treatments that use the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Much like COVID-19 vaccines that train the body to recognize and destroy the coronavirus, we are developing cancer vaccines that train the body to target and destroy cancer cells. Our immunotherapy platform is aimed at creating lower cost personalized CAR T-cell therapies as well as generalized antibody treatments through nanotechnology and gene-editing innovations. Our initial drug development is targeted at treating Ewing Sarcoma, a rare but deadly bone and soft tissue cancer that primarily affects children and young adults. There is currently no FDA approved treatment to prevent recurrence. Our research is performed at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center by a leading cancer research team. We believe the resulting immunotherapy platform will be able to target other cancers such as adrenal cancer and brain cancer, as well as enabling the development of other vaccines and drugs.
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