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Meeting abstracts Predicting the likelihood of a clinical outcome using biomarkers during the course of a cancer immunotherapy can be a powerful tool for time-sensitive decision making on personalized treatment options. In a clinical trial with the survivin-targeting vaccine DPX-Survivac, we showed

Meeting abstracts Immune based therapies for cancer are emerging as promising strategies to treat a number of malignancies. A more thorough biomarker assessment of the patients may provide insights into the variability in response to such immune therapies. In a Phase I/Ib clinical trial with the

Meeting abstracts Future cancer immunotherapies will combine multiple treatments to improve immune responses to cancer through synergistic, multi-modal mechanisms. In a Phase I clinical trial, we found that the immune response to a peptide vaccine targeting survivin, DPX-Survivac, by ovarian cancer

Background DepoVaxTM is a novel non-emulsion depot-forming vaccine platform with the capacity to significantly enhance the immunogenicity of peptide cancer antigens. Naturally processed HLA-A2 restricted peptides presented by breast, ovarian and prostate cancer cells were used as antigens to create a therapeutic cancer vaccine, DPX-0907. Methods A phase I clinical study was designed to examine the safety and immune activating potential of DPX-0907 in advanced stage breast, ovarian and prostate cancer patients. A total of 23 late stage cancer patients were recruited and were divided into two dose/volume cohorts in a three immunization protocol. Results DPX-0907 was shown to be safe with injection site reactions being the most commonly reported adverse event. All breast cancer patients (3/3), most of ovarian (5/6) and one third of prostate (3/9) cancer patients exhibited detectable immune responses, resulting in a 61% immunological response rate. Immune responses were generally observed in patients with better disease control after their last prior treatment. Antigen-specific responses were detected in 73% of immune responders (44% of evaluable patients) after the first vaccination. In 83% of immune responders (50% of evaluable patients), peptide-specific T cell responses were detected at ≥2 time points post vaccination with 64% of the responders (39% of evaluable patients) showing evidence of immune persistence. Immune monitoring also demonstrated the generation of antigen-specific T cell memory with the ability to secrete multiple Type 1 cytokines. Conclusions The novel DepoVax formulation promotes multifunctional effector memory responses to peptide-based tumor associated antigens. The data supports the capacity of DPX-0907 to elicit Type-1 biased immune responses, warranting further clinical development of the vaccine. This study underscores the importance of applying vaccines in clinical settings in which patients are more likely to be immune competent. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01095848