Amazon has been developing personalized vaccines for breast and skin cancers in conjunction with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and has been recruiting patients to participate in an FDA-approved clinical trial for the shots, according to a public filing.
The study is titled “Personalized Neo-Antigen Peptide Vaccine for the Treatment of Stage IIIC-IV Melanoma or Hormone Receptor-Positive Her2 Negative Metastatic Refractory Breast Cancer.”
According to a brief summary of the study, the Phase 1 clinical trial will look at the “safety of personalized neo-antigen peptide vaccine” in treating patients with melanoma or breast cancer that has spread to other places in the body or does not respond to treatment.
The personalized vaccine will effectively help the body to create tumor-specific antibodies, so attacker T cells can identify and destroy those tumor cells.
‘Collaborator’
The treatment will continue for 25 weeks, so long as the disease does not progress or unacceptable toxicity levels are noted, according to researchers.“Patients then receive nivolumab every 2 or 4 weeks for up to 12 months in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity,” researchers continued. “After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up at 24, 36, and 48 weeks.”
The study of the “U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product” began on June 9 and the trial has an estimated completion date of November 2023.
Fred Hutchinson is listed as the “sponsor” of the trial, and Amazon is referred to as the “collaborator” of the study.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Amazon told the publication that the retail giant is “contributing scientific and machine learning expertise to a partnership with Fred Hutch to explore the development of a personalized treatment for certain forms of cancer.”
They added that things are still in the early stages but that “Fred Hutch recently received permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to proceed with a Phase I clinical trial, and it’s unclear whether it will be successful.”
‘Long, Multi-Year Process’
“This will be a long, multi-year process—should it progress, we would be open to working with other organizations in health care and life sciences that might also be interested in similar efforts,” the spokesperson added.The study was conducted among 12 rectal cancer patients who were given dostarlimab, a monoclonal antibody, every three weeks for six months, and all had a “clinical complete response,” according to the authors.
Those who participated in the trial also continued to show no signs of cancer during follow-ups ranging from 6 months to 25 months and haven’t had to undergo surgery or receive radiation and chemotherapy.
