Colorectal cancer can grow for a long time without symptoms, and options once it is advanced are described as essentially nonexistent. Tartu biotechnology company Vectiopep is building a therapeutic vaccine meant to treat that disease rather than prevent it. The firm has spent years on the underlying technology, raised further capital, won grants and expanded its team.
A few years ago Vectiopep had a way to carry genetic material into cells. It is now shaping a specific medicine, with colorectal cancer as the first target. Several slightly different versions are in testing at once. By the end of this year the company must choose a lead candidate for the next stage, because each later step costs more and not every version can continue, co-founder Kaido Kurrikoff said.
The programme is still preclinical. Work so far has been in animals: Kurrikoff said no test animal died and no side effects were seen. Those results do not show that the drug is safe or effective in people. That judgement can come only after studies in humans.
After a lead is chosen, a long preparation remains. The most optimistic forecast puts a first dose in a person at about a year and a half. One idea under discussion is to run that first use in Estonia under a hospital exemption. The company must document safety more fully and manufacture a product of the quality and purity needed for people. Kurrikoff said much of the time will go to chemical description and quality control, including how long the drug lasts and what its properties are. Only with those studies and documents in place could a candidate be given to a person for the first time.
Manufacturing is planned to move outside Estonia, while the hope is still to reach a first patient at home. A hospital exemption can, under set conditions, allow an unlicensed novel medicine for a particular patient. It requires permission from the medicines agency, and the drug must already be developed far enough to be administered. Kurrikoff said it is not a phase 1 clinical trial and would yield less thorough information, but it could show how the drug behaves in the body, whether use looks safe and whether any treatment effect appears.
A few years ago Kurrikoff told Tartu Postimees that melanoma might be the first target. The company has dropped that plan. He said melanoma is a crowded testing ground for new immune drugs, so Vectiopep would compete both with other medicines and for the same patients, including against large developers such as Moderna. Organising trials would be harder, and finding suitable melanoma patients in Estonia could take years because several developers seek the same people.
Colorectal cancer is the world’s second-leading cause of cancer deaths, after lung cancer, and is linked to nearly 920,000 deaths a year. Vectiopep’s longer aim is not a drug for only one cancer. The colorectal programme is meant first to show that its delivery platform works: needed information is carried into a patient’s immune cells so the body can recognise cancer cells and fight them, using mRNA and peptides that enter cells. Kurrikoff described it as transport or logistics built around molecules that hold that information.
In simple terms, the mRNA is an instruction set delivered into an immune cell so the immune system can learn to recognise and attack the cancer. The goal, as with chemotherapy, is to destroy the cancer cell, but here the immune system is what finds and eliminates those cells, Kurrikoff said.
mRNA became widely known in the Covid-19 pandemic, when several vaccines used it. Vectiopep previously moved DNA and, as mRNA rose, turned its delivery technology toward mRNA. Kurrikoff said the company takes mRNA, packages it and carries it into a patient’s immune cells with special cell-penetrating peptides.
Storage is a known difficulty for mRNA medicines. Pandemic vaccines required tightly controlled temperatures. Vectiopep has now made its experimental drug as a powder, which raises hope that a future product could be easier to keep and ship. Before injection, a solution would be added to the powder. Kurrikoff said a dose left on a cupboard would not automatically have to be discarded.
Stability is not settled. Later work must still establish how long the preparation keeps its properties and under which conditions. Kurrikoff said proving quality and stability is a large share of what must be finished before anyone can receive the drug.
Source: Tartu Ülikool
Estonia biotech · Tartu Vectiopep · colorectal cancer vaccine · mRNA drug Estonia · hospital exemption Estonia · therapeutic cancer vaccine