Therapeutic Cancer Vaccines - A turbulent path from bench to bedside

Unmet needs across the cancer market remain high, with most therapies conferring low levels of specificity and high toxicity. Therapeutic cancer vaccines offer an attractive therapeutic addition, delivering treatment of high specificity, low toxicity and prolonged activity. However, despite years of R&D, a reproducible survival benefit has proved elusive, leaving the market wide open.

105 different pipeline cancer vaccines have been identified of which 14 are in late-phase development. These existing candidates have a forecast sales potential of up to $3.1 billion in the seven major pharmaceutical markets by 2015.

Despite Dendreon's Provenge preregistration status, skepticism still surrounds the use of dendritic cells as a viable technology platform. Indeed, an entirely new set of clinical and strategic issues has been brought to light across the spectrum of cancer vaccine development classes.

While personalized immunotherapies offer greater levels of specificity and lower toxicity, generalized alternatives should facilitate production, help achieve economies of scale and offer broader utility in a range of tumor types. It is therefore not suspiring that these 'off-the-shelf' products dominate the current pipeline.

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