NEW YORK – GreenLight Biosciences and EpiVax Therapeutics on Monday said they are partnering to develop messenger RNA-based personalized cancer vaccines.
Medford, Massachusetts-based GreenLight will bring to the collaboration its mRNA design and manufacturing expertise, while EpiVax will provide access to its platform, dubbed Ancer, for developing cancer immunotherapies. The partners plan to jointly develop and commercialize personalized mRNA cancer vaccines for multiple tumor types including bladder cancer.
The Ancer platform uses advanced algorithms to identify genomic sequences driving patients' tumors. These algorithms, EpiMatrix and Janus Matrix, are designed to identify CD8 and CD3 neoepitopes that are immunogenic enough for vaccine development and avoid the epitopes that would lessen vaccine efficacy. The Providence, Rhode Island-based EpiVax believes the Ancer platform can shorten the time it takes to go from biopsy to vaccine from days to hours.
"Combining our advanced Ancer pipeline for personalized cancer vaccine design with GreenLight's expertise in mRNA production is a win-win for the companies and for cancer patients," EpiVax CEO Nicole Ruggiero said in a statement.
EpiVax and GreenLight did not disclose the financial terms of their agreement.