#Innovate4Health: Latin American research collaboration creates the world’s first lung cancer vaccine
By Philip Stevens
Intellectual property rights have underpinned the international collaboration behind the world’s first lung cancer drug
Lung cancer is highly aggressive, hard to treat and causes more deaths worldwide than any other form of the disease. In 2018, according to the World Health Organisation, it is expected to claim more than two million lives. As less than 20% of sufferers live five years beyond first diagnosis, the disease is a major global health threat, as well as an individual tragedy for those unlucky enough to suffer it.
Hope is at hand thanks to the world’s first lung cancer vaccine, Vaxira, developed by a consortium of Argentinean and Cuban universities, companies and research institutes.
A so-called ‘therapeutic’ vaccine, Vaxira works by ‘unmasking’ the cancer cells, leaving them open to attack by the body’s immune system.
The vaccine, which took 18 years to develop, is therefore not a vaccine in the traditional, preventative sense, but rather an “active immunotherapy treatment,” according to Dr. Daniel Alonso, the scientific director of the consortium that created the vaccine. “It is a treatment option for prolonging a patient’s life.”
The vaccine is not a silver bullet against lung cancer, but it does bring hope to millions of sufferers. Clinical trials on some 1,700 patients in 86 countries have shown that 24 per cent of late-stage lung cancer sufferers lived for two years with Vaxira, compared to only 8 per cent of patients undergoing standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Trials have shown the vaccine to be most effective in patients whose tumours have already been shrunk by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Vaxira can be used in the non-small cell lung cancers that account for about 85 per cent of all lung cancer cases.
With the arrival of an innovative medicine like Vaxira, lung cancer sufferers for the first time have the opportunity to manage the disease while leading productive lives.
“Of course, this is not a miracle cure,” says to Dr. Alonso. “But it does provide an option so that, in combination with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, it can prolong survival significantly.”
With the arrival of an innovative medicine like Vaxira, lung cancer sufferers for the first time have the opportunity to manage the disease while leading productive lives. The hope is that with new technological advances, this terminal cancer can in time be turned into manageable, chronic disease, as has already happened with HIV/AIDS.
The scientists also believe the drug, or ones like it, could eventually have other applications such as for breast cancer, which can have the same tumour antigen as lung cancer. Its therapeutic effect is also being studied in melanoma, as well as in some paediatric tumours such as neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, Ewing’s sarcoma and Wilms’ tumour.
Latin American R&D collaboration
The vaccine was collaborative effort, developed jointly by ID+i, an Argentinean consortium comprising universities, government ministries, Argentinean pharmaceutical conglomerate Grupo Insud, and Cuba’s Molecular Immunology Center (CIM, in Spanish).
“When we started researching, our goal was to develop biological therapies that use the body’s immune system to fight cancer,” says Silvia Gold, co-head of Grupo Insud. “We thought the product would be ready in five years, but it was much more difficult than we imagined. Still, we continued on. When we look back today, we can see it’s been a long road.”
In the end, the path from lab to market took 18 years and around $100 million was invested in its development. As with the science, funding was a collaborative effort. Forty per cent came from the Cuban government and the rest from Grupo Insud.
Vaxira was first launched in Argentina, a country where more than 9,000 people die of lung cancer every year. This marks something of a return to innovation leadership for a country that boasts numerous scientific Nobel Prizes, but has in recent years focused more on its generic medicine industry.
Vaxira’s development was underpinned by the desire to show Argentina could compete once again in drug discovery, says Dr. Sigman. “As a doctor, as an Argentine and as someone who has a commitment to our country and region, I’ve always had the perception that we haven’t been capable of working in the innovation industry.”
Intellectual property rights enable research collaboration
Intellectual property rights have been central to the Vaxira’s journey from university clinic to market, not least because they enable research collaboration between institutions and across borders.
Since the beginning of the project to the completion of clinical trials, more than 100 people from different fields have been involved — from molecular biologists to clinical oncologists. Universities, government institutions and private, profit-making companies have all played their part.
In fact, the story of Vaxira’s development is typical of the networked innovation model that increasingly characterises biopharmaceutical innovation. It is very rare nowadays for one company to research, develop and market a new treatment in-house. Modern drug development is typically a result of collaboration between big and small companies, academia and the public sector at all stages of the R&D cycle.
Intellectual property rights have been central to the Vaxira’s journey from university clinic to market, not least because they enable research collaboration between institutions and across borders.
As a result, today’s innovation is increasingly iterative and networked. Various contributors may enter at any step of the innovation process. For example, early-stage bio-molecular discovery may be done in collaboration with other private firms. The rights holder may license out various discrete components of the drug development process to subcontracting organisations, often in different countries. And as a drug progresses through clinical trials, key proprietary elements need to be disclosed to ever-larger numbers of people outside the institution leading the development.
Without secure, readily enforceable intellectual property rights such as patents and regulatory data protection, this kind of international research collaboration would be very challenging indeed. It is particularly important that the rules are harmonised at an international level, to facilitate cross-border flows of technology, know-how and knowledge.
Vaxira is one of the more exciting innovations in lung cancer treatment to emerge in recent years, and it was developed entirely in Latin America. The hope is that this is the beginning of a new era of Latin American biopharmaceutical innovation.
#Innovate4Health is a joint research project by Geneva Network and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). This project highlights how intellectual property-driven innovation can address global health challenges. If you have questions, comments, or a suggestion for a story we should highlight, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact info@geneva-network.com
