Scancell Holdings Plc, (PLUS:SCLP), the parent company of Scancell Limited (‘Scancell’), the developer of innovative therapeutic cancer vaccines, announces that at the Annual General Meeting, held earlier today, all resolutions were duly passed.
The Directors of the issuer accept responsibility for this announcement.
For further information contact:
Professor Lindy Durrant, CEO - Scancell Holdings Plc - +44 (0)207 245 1100
John Bick/Kirsty Corcoran - Hansard Group - +44 (0)7872 061 007/+44 (0)7515 588 947
Ross Andrews/Tom Rowley - Zeus Capital - +44 (0)161 831 1512
About Scancell
Scancell is developing novel therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases based on its groundbreaking ImmunoBody® technology platform. Scancell’s first cancer vaccine SCIB1 is being developed for the treatment of melanoma and will enter clinical trials in early 2010.
Treating cancer by vaccination allows small non-toxic doses of a vaccine to be administered to a patient, stimulating an immune response. Effective cancer vaccines need to target dendritic cells to stimulate both parts of the cellular immune system; the helper cell system where inflammation is stimulated at the tumour site; and the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte or CTL response where immune system cells are primed to recognise and kill specific cells.
A limitation of many cancer vaccines currently in development is that they cannot specifically target dendritic cells in vivo. Several groups have demonstrated successful vaccination by growing dendritic cells ex vivo, pulsing them with tumour antigens and re-infusing them. However, this procedure is patient specific, time consuming and expensive. Scancell has developed its breakthrough patent protected ImmunoBody® technology to overcome these limitations.
An ImmunoBody® is a DNA vaccine encoding a human antibody or fusion protein engineered to express helper cell and CTL epitopes from tumour antigens over-expressed by cancer cells. Antibodies are ideal vectors for carrying T cell epitopes from tumour antigens as they can effectively target dendritic cells via their Fc receptors, allowing efficient stimulation of high avidity and high frequency helper and CTL responses.
The ImmunoBody® technology can be adapted to provide the basis for treating any tumour type and may also be of potential utility in the development of vaccines against hepatitis, HIV and other chronic infectious diseases.