SEATTLE, June 26, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TapImmune Inc (OTCBB:TPIV) has announced it will present a poster at the Third Annual Cancer Vaccines and Active Immunotherapy Summit in Boston describing it's HER2/Neu vaccine development program. This will include scientific details describing and differentiating this vaccine program from others in clinical development. The prime and boost approach utilizes multiple antigen technologies, licensed from the Mayo clinic, combined with TAP expression technologies developed at TapImmune. The Class II antigen pool is currently being evaluated in a phase I safety and immunogenicity study at the Mayo Clinic.
The poster will be presented by Mark Reddish, Vice President, Development who added "We are extremely pleased to be able to now unveil our entire vaccine development program for HER2/neu immunotherapy. The recent exclusive licensing of the CTL epitope was the key strategic in license to make a 'complete vaccine'. This combination of a naturally processed high affinity immune-dominant Class I target combined with a collection of diverse class II binding peptides offers a vaccine that is broadly recognized across the population and therefore offers a potential therapeutic option to a wider cross spectrum of patients than current approaches. More importantly, we believe that a vaccine against solid tumors requires active involvement of both CD4 helpers T cells and CD8 killer T cells to be ultimately effective. In our prime and boost approach using the TAP molecular adjuvant expression vectors we believe we have all of the required components for an effective HER2/neu immunotherapy."
Glynn Wilson CEO said "The significant experience of our advisors and collaborators who have had a long history with HER2/neu vaccine development has guided our scientific and development approach. Although we are early in clinical development we believe that the scientific strengths of our approach, which addresses deficiencies in earlier trials, will give us a competitive advantage."
About Tapimmune Inc.
Taplmmune Inc. is a vaccine technologies company specializing in the development of innovative gene based immunotherapeutics and vaccines in the areas of oncology and infectious disease. The Company's lead product candidates, include vaccines designed to restore and augment antigen presentation and subsequent recognition and killing of cancer cells by the immune system. The Company has started a Phase 1 immunotherapy clinical trial targeting HER2Neu in breast cancer using a patented technology developed at the Mayo clinic. TapImmune has the exclusive Option to license this technology. The Company is also developing TAP-based prophylactic vaccines commercially suitable for the prevention of infectious diseases and as Biodefense agents. As a vaccine component, the gene based TAP technology has the potential to significantly improve the efficacy of both prophylactic and immunotherapeutic vaccines as it addresses a fundamental mechanism for T cell recognition and response. Unlike other vaccine technologies that address only the initiation of immune responses, TAP expression also has the unique ability to enhance the effector function of mature killer T cells. This enhancement of effector function is potentially complementary to any/all vaccine approaches that are designed to enhance cellular responses.
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