CureVac GmbH, a biotech company specializing in the development of mRNA vaccines, presented at the ASCO Conference in Chicago final results of the world's first phase I/IIa clinical trial using RNActive® vaccine CV9103 to treat patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer. These final trial results confirm the preliminary data published previously and demonstrate the safety and excellent antigen-specific immunogenicity of prostate cancer vaccine CV9103. The vaccine contains mRNA molecules coding for four different tumor antigens and is delivered directly via intradermal injection.CV9103 induced an antigen-specific immune response in 79% of the evaluable patients per protocol to at least one antigen, with more than half of these patients developing specific immune responses to more than one antigen. Furthermore, immune responses against all four antigens in the vaccine were detected.

The Company also published initial promising data at the ASCO conference on a phase I/IIa trial of its lung cancer vaccine CV9201. This tumor vaccine was used to treat patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung carcinoma who had previously undergone chemotherapy. CV9201 contains five tumor-specific antigens that differ from the four antigens in CV9103. Despite the extremely debilitating pre-treatment of all patients with platinum-based chemotherapy, CV9201 appears to trigger a specific and relevant immune response. Preliminary data from the trial shows a significant increase in germinal center B cells. This cell population suggests that memory B cells are generated with T-cell help.

"The immunological analysis is not yet complete, but these initial data is extremely interesting. It supports the findings of the prostate carcinoma trial and also points to strong B cell activation in addition to the proven T cell activation. The data once again demonstrates the great potential of RNActive® vaccination technology," says Dr. Kajo Kallen, CSO/CMO of CureVac. Both trials show that RNActive® vaccines have a very good safety profile and trigger strong, balanced antigen-specific immune responses from both human T- and B-cells. Therefore, CureVac’s RNActive® technology could potentially make an important contribution to advancing the treatment of cancer. The RNActive® technology could also be used to develop prophylactic vaccinations against infections, where the production of protective antibodies plays a key role.

Further Information

CureVac GmbH
Paul-Ehrlich-Str. 15
72076 Tübingen
Phone: 07071/ 920 53 - 20
Mobile: 07071/ 920 53 - 11
E-mail: communications(at)curevac.com