Terumo and PhotonPharma have teamed up to develop Innocell, a therapeutic vaccine for solid tumors.

Apheresis services firm Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies and cancer immunotherapy developer PhotonPharma have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to develop Innocell.

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Innocell is a tumor specific immunotherapy aiming to treat solid tumors.

“The therapeutic vaccine is made using autologous tumor tissue taken from the patient as either a biopsy or a surgical resection of the tumor,” Ray Goodrich Co-Founder of PhotonPharma told BioProcess Insider.

“That material is transported from the surgical site at the hospital to a cell processing facility in the vicinity where the tumor tissue is prepared for inactivation and combination with the appropriate adjuvant.  This material is then returned to the hospital where the cells with adjuvant are re-injected into the patient in order to stimulate the immune response toward their own tumor.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Terumo has granted PhotoPharma with full access to its Device Master File (DMR) for the Mirasol device.

In turn, “This reduces PhotonPharma’s preclinical workload, budget and schedule as the DMR contains years of work that PhotonPharma can submit to the FDA for regulatory submissions,” Goodrich said.

PhotonPharma will manufacture the vaccine in close proximity to the hospital where patients are being treated.

“The Phase I study will be conducted in collaboration with Cancer Insight in San Antonio, Texas.  The product will be made at BioBridge, a local cell therapy manufacturing operation, also based in San Antonio, Texas, which can conduct the work and provide the material in a cGMP compliant way.”

Scale-up required

Goodrich did not disclose how many members of staff it expects to hire but he did confirm that more staff are needed.

“We are also relying on our collaborators and partners to provide much of the services that we will need to advance this to the clinic. We are not trying to re-create or build cell manufacturing capabilities or clinical study capabilities from scratch. We are working with people like BioBridge and Cancer Insight to advance this forward.”

No financial details were divulged.