New therapy ‘highly effective’ in patients with ovarian cancer, says BioNTech

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said its new tumour-specific cancer therapy is proving highly effective in patients with ovarian cancer and other forms of the illness.

BioNTech’s novel therapy combines an mRNA vaccine, used in the company’s breakthrough Covid-19 vaccine, with so-called CAR-T cells.

These are artificially modified immune cells that have been equipped with special receptors that are able to recognise structures on the surface of cancer cells.

In the new BioNTech treatment the DNA of the tumour is sequenced to identify information unique to the patient’s cancer. From this an mRNA vaccine is created that allows the immune system recognise the cancer cell building blocks and attack them directly.

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This week’s BioNTech data, presented at a conference in Spain, confirm interim numbers presented earlier this year at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

According to the latest study results, there was a 45 per cent response rate among 38 patients suffering from advanced stages of ovarian cancer and other cancers with solid tumours.

In 59 per cent of these cases, tumours shrank by at least 30 per cent. In nearly all of these cases the cancer remained stable and the tumours did not grow further.

BioNTech says its combination therapy is more efficient in allowing the immune body recognise the cancer cells – it also remains functional for longer.

The company hopes that what it calls its BNT211 treatment could be used against tumours containing a protein called Claudin-6. These include ovarian, testicular, cervical cancer and stomach cancer as well as sarcomas.

“Our goal is to unlock the potential of CAR-T therapies for solid tumours and help improve treatment outcomes for a range of tumours for which options are currently very limited,” Dr Özlem Türeci, co-founder of BioNTech said.

According to the data, trial participants at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City experienced mild side effects such as fever and low blood pressure. One participant required intensive care treatment but has since recovered.

BioNTech said it hopes the ongoing study would allow research move to a full clinical study next year, required for full approval.

BioNTech, based in Mainz near Frankfurt, shot to fame as the first company to produce a next-generation mRNA vaccine to treat Covid-19, which was manufactured and distributed by Pfizer.

Dr Türeci said its Comirnaty coronavirus vaccine was an accidental discovery on the company’s longer-term journey to discover a next-generation cancer treatment, on which it has been working for 15 years.

Shares in the company leapt at this week’s news that a second set of human cancer test data confirmed the hopes of initial numbers.

Last week BioNTech stock sank after news that it expects to record a charge of up to €900 million in the third quarter due to writedowns of Comirnaty.

Despite setbacks, analysts remain confident that BioNTech will lead the market for next-generation cancer treatment with one industry analytics company projecting annual sales of €832 million and a 44.6 per cent market share by 2029.