MVA-BN® HER2
Therapeutic breast cancer vaccine candidate.
MVA-BN® HER2 is designed to express sequences that control
immunity to HER2-Neu antigen (HER2). HER2 is a growth factor
receptor that is over-expressed by approximately 20 - 30% of
patients with localized breast cancer, and is important for the
growth of the tumour. HER2 has been validated as a tumour antigen
target through numerous preclinical and clinical studies. This is
notably exemplified by the efficacy of Herceptin, a humanized
anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody, FDA and EMEA approved for treatment
in both metastatic and adjuvant disease settings. Active
immunotherapy against HER2 is being studied by numerous
investigators at an early stage of development using a variety of
forms of HER2 including wild-type, truncated, peptide fragments,
and modified forms. Bavarian-Nordic's approach is to utilize the
MVA-BN® vector, engineered to encode a modified form of HER2,
to generate endogenous immune response to the critical tumour
antigen.
