CTCA will fund development of Avax’ ovarian cancer vaccine and its own activated NK cell technology.

Avax Technologies and Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) are partnering to progress each other’s cancer therapeutics. CTCA will serve as the center for Avax’ ovarian cancer vaccine, O-Vax. Additionally, Avax will produce CTCA’s activated natural killer (NK) cell technology for the treatment of various cancers.


Avax is planning a Phase I/II IND for the treatment of stage III and IV ovarian cancer patients who have relapsed following chemotherapy. The study will be based at CTCA’s hospital in Zion, IL. Eligible patients from CTCA’s other clinical centers in Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tulsa, OK, also will be referred.


Over the three-year term of the collaboration and production agreement, Avax will receive R&D support of $1.15 million. The funding will go toward the initial production of vaccines and bringing on line its biological clean room facility in Philadelphia that will be utilized to produce vaccines and activated NK cell preparations.


O-Vax is an AC vaccine therapeutic prepared by attaching a small chemical to the patient’s tumor cells in a process known as haptenization. This hapten modification allows the tumor cells to stimulate a T-cell based immune response to a patients own tumor cells.


“This alliance will allow us to expand the therapeutic utility of the AC vaccine platform along with our ongoing Phase I/II programs in melanoma and non-small-cell-lung cancer and our recently launched Phase III registration study in melanoma,” states Richard Rainey, president of Avax.

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