SANTAVAC ™: A Novel Universal Antigen Composition for Developing Cancer Vaccines

BACKGROUND: Development of a universal cancer vaccine for the prevention of all cancers has been under development for many years. Antiangiogenic cancer vaccines elicit immune responses with the potential of destroying tumor vasculature endothelial cells without affecting vasculature integrity in normal tissues. The methods used in the development of antigen compositions comprising these vaccines have been recently improved and described in this report in the context of SANTAVAC ™ development - the first cancer vaccine based on endothelial cell heterogeneity. METHODS: The present report summarizes data related to SANTAVAC™ development, including technical key points associated with optimal SANTAVAC™ production, a description of the composition required for preparing cancer vaccines with the highest predicted efficacy and safety, and a strategy for SANTAVAC™ large-scale implementation. Patents related to SANTAVAC™ and other universal cancer vaccines are also described. RESULTS: SANTAVAC ™ was shown to be the most promising antigen composition for anti-cancer vaccination, allowing for immune targeting of the tumor vasculature in experimental models with a high predicted efficacy (up to 60), where efficacy represents the fold decrease in the number of endothelial cells with a tumor-induced phenotype and directly related to predicted arrest of tumor growth. CONCLUSION: The use of SANTAVAC ™ as a universal antigenic composition may spur vaccine development activities resulting in a set of therapeutic or prophylactic vaccines against different types of solid cancers.