BruCells increases capital by 862.580 Euros and enters collaboration with DCPrime to develop allogeneic therapeutic cancer vaccines

BruCells SA/NV, the Belgium based therapeutic cancer vaccine company, announces that its capital has been increased from 1.500.000 Euros to 2.362.580 Euros by contributions in kind from the partner universities and in cash from the Brussels Imagination, Innovation and Incubation fund (BI3) and Brustart, the seed capital company of the Brussels Regional Investment Company (SRIB – GIMB). The proceeds will be used to develop the proof of principle of dendritic-tumour cell fusion vaccines and of peptides loaded dendritic vaccines based on allogeneic dendritic cell lines obtained from DCPrime, a spin-off company of the Medical Centre of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under a licence and collaborative research agreement executed on June 14, 2006.

 

The Dendritic Cells (DC), which are naturally present in white blood cells, can pick up pathogens from the skin, process them and present them to the immune system in order to mount a defence. They act as sentinels of the immune system. By using DCs to artificially present antigens specific of certain cancer cells, the immune system can be instructed to destroy such cancer cells. There are many therapeutic cancer vaccines based on these principles under clinical development. They are expected to represent a significant share of cancer therapies beyond 2010.

 

In practice, DCs are generally obtained from blood monocytes extracted from the patients themselves (autologous) or from voluntary donors (allogeneic). This process is relatively complicated, expensive and does not lend itself to pharmaceutical production. DCPrime has developed a technology that enables to obtain immortal precursor cell lines, which can be maintained and cultivated in vitro in order to produce DCs of suitable quality and quantity without requiring blood extraction.

 

BruCells has developed and patented therapeutic cancer vaccines obtained by fusing DC with cancer cells or loading them with cancer specific antigens or peptides. By combining these two technologies, the company intends to develop fully allogeneic vaccines that can be prepared in advance without requiring any material from the patients. This will open the way to pharmaceutical production of therapeutic vaccines at reasonable cost. The first target indication is Glioma, the main form of brain cancer, for which an Orphan Drug designation has been applied to EMEA.

 

Gilles Capart, President of BruCells, commented: “The synergy between BruCells and DCPrime is rather unique. The collaboration will accelerate the development of the second generation of BruCells fusion vaccines, which has a wide spectrum of indications and is expected to be more effective than other whole-cell vaccines currently under development. The collaboration with the VU academic hospital of Amsterdam further widens the available cancer franchise from our existing excellent academic partners”.

 

“BruCells has a strong position in dendritic – tumour cells fusion vaccines,” said Ada Kruisbeek, CEO of DCPrime. “We are happy to be partnered with BruCells to accelerate the way to market for the technology and expertise obtained by DCPrime from the Vrije Universiteit Medical Centre Amsterdam.”

 

About BruCells: BruCells SA is a Belgian based company specializing in the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines using dendritic cells. BruCells has licensing and close collaboration arrangements with the immunology and oncology departments of Université Libre de Bruxelles, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Université catholique de Louvain and has been supported by development grants from the Region of Brussels. http://www.brucells.com

 

About DCPrime: DCPrime is a spin-out of the VU Medical Centre Amsterdam created in March 2005 in order to further develop and commercialize the technology of the university medical centre in the field of cancer immunotherapy. http://www.cimo.vu.nl/Ondernemen/home_file.cfm/fileid/EC952F70-A3D2-4372-A0D5467823AEAE23/subsectionid/00EACB9F-3584-4078-98A6ACF95E6738AE