Therapeutic cancer vaccines, long deemed one of the most commercially attractive pharmaceutical business opportunities and a highly-cherished health care objective, are beginning to show promise for a number of cancers. A growing list of companies are entering the race to deliver to market a therapeutic approach to cancer that is at once metabolically friendly and efficacious. These companies and their academic and pharma partners, are developing cancer vaccines that increase tumor immunogenicity, approaching the problem from an extremely wide range of technical directions. Perhaps the most significant strategic separation in cancer vaccine research involves companies using autologous, or patient derived, tumor antigens and those relying on cancer cell lines, while small number of cancer vaccine participants are testing synthetic molecules. While the clinical trial success of cancer vaccines to date has been decidedly mixed, in recent months the FDA has granted several cancer vaccine programs Fast Track status, raising hopes among participants, investors and patients that important progress is being made.

Publication Date: February 2006