Biogem IRGS, Dept of Molecular Oncology, via Camporeale 83031, Ariano Irpino (AV), Italy.
Expert Opin Ther Pat. 2010 May;20(5):647-60. doi: 10.1517/13543771003720483.
Cancer is still a largely unmet medical need and the leading cause of death in industrialised countries. The general consensus of scientists is that therapeutic cancer vaccines will become a reality. Overall, the cancer treatment market continues to grow and this demand sets the stage for vaccine products. In parallel, the intellectual property literature in this field has grown over the past years and new avenues are being explored.
Over 200 patents issued in the last 4 years have been evaluated and a part of them selected and commented on.
Significant advances have been made with modified peptide vaccines, engineering of tumour associated antigens, the development of novel vaccination technologies and evaluation of new adjuvants. Novel tumour associated antigens and stromal antigens are under development. Several approaches are at early stages of clinical evaluation and hold promise for further progresses.
Even though few specific products are currently available on the market, cancer vaccines have the potential to offer long-term survival to cancer patients in the near future. However, it is also clear that cancer vaccines will never be a 'stand alone' therapy, but will need to be combined with standard therapies and immunomodulators.
癌症仍然是一个未得到满足的医疗需求和主要死因在工业化国家。科学家们的共识是，治疗癌症疫苗将成为现实。总的来说，癌症治疗市场持续增长，这种需求为疫苗产品奠定了基础。与此同时，该领域的知识产权文献在过去几年中不断增加，新的途径正在被探索。
在过去的 4 年中已经评估了 200 多项专利，并选择和评论了其中的一部分。
与修饰肽疫苗、肿瘤相关抗原的工程、新型疫苗技术的发展和新型佐剂的评估方面取得了重大进展。新的肿瘤相关抗原和基质抗原正在开发中。一些方法处于临床评估的早期阶段，有希望取得进一步进展。
尽管目前市场上只有少数特定产品，但癌症疫苗有可能在不久的将来为癌症患者提供长期生存。然而，很明显，癌症疫苗将永远不会是一种“独立”的疗法，而需要与标准疗法和免疫调节剂结合使用。
