TAPCells technology, developed by Dr. Flavio Salazar, an academic from the Faculty of Medicine of the U. de Chile, received funding from CORFO to carry out clinical trials in patients with stage IV melanoma in Brazil. Preliminary studies suggest that 60% of those who receive this immunological treatment have a survival 3 to 4 times greater than untreated people. This “technology transfer is of strategic importance for our country and the region, as it will represent a great scientific advance in the treatment of melanoma,” said Dr. Eliseo Sekiya, Scientific Director of Grupo São Lucas in Brazil.
Inés Llambías, Journalist UChile.- A therapeutic vaccine for people with advanced stages of melanoma will be tested in Brazilian patients. The technology was developed in our country by a team of researchers led by the Dr. Flavio Salazar Onfray, academic at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile and scientific adviser to Oncobiomed, a biotechnology company that has been part of the project since its inception. The therapy, called TAPCellswill begin clinical studies in Brazil under the supervision of the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), a pioneer agency in the regulation of medicinal products at the regional level.
Previous studies have shown that this formula increases life expectancy between 3 to 4 times in 60% of patients who receive it. This new stage of tests, which will be possible thanks to the financing provided by CORFO, will allow targeting a potential market of 200 million people. In this way, the project constitutes a true adventure for a scientific-technological innovation generated by Chilean researchers, internationally patented, and which is now seeking validation in the South American giant, a fundamental step for its global transfer, since due to regulatory issues, Until now, it is only possible to manage within the national territory.
“In Brazil, the incidence of melanoma is estimated at 9,000 people per year, of which 46.7% are in stages III and IV. This means that about 4,500 patients have advanced conditions of the disease, with an annual mortality rate of 2,100 patients. This population can benefit from treatment with Chilean technology. It is for this reason that the development of the TAPCells technology is of strategic importance for Grupo São Lucas and for our country, because it represents a great scientific advance in the treatment of melanoma, with the potential to benefit those who do not respond to current treatments” , pointed out the Dr. Elisha SekiyaScientific Director of the São Lucas Group of Brazil.
For his part, he Dr. Adelson Alves, founder and president of the Board of Directors of Grupo São Lucas, added that “TAPCells is an autologous immunotherapy that uses monocytic cells from the patient’s own immune system, which after becoming antigen-presenting cells, are injected back into the person. In particular, The efficacy of the treatment is not accompanied by mild or severe adverse effects and its clinical response rate is around 60% of those treated.”.
The cell research center of Brazil San Lucas Cell Therapy Group is one of the most important oncology groups in the region specializing in oncology, hematology and cancer research. It covers more than 10,000 consultations and approximately 18,000 chemotherapies per month.
Dr. Alves also highlighted that “the Oncobiomed team carried out the Phase I and Phase II preclinical and clinical studies, which included nearly 120 stage IV patients, generating up to a 3-fold increase in patient survival. Subsequently, it was endorsed in nearly 400 treated patients. These results and the prestige of the academics of the University of Chile were fundamental factors in carrying out this strategic alliance.which we hope will reach the entire continent”.
flexible technology
Dr. Flavio Salazar explains that TAPCells is a clinical procedure that belongs to immunotherapies. This type of treatment is based on the regulation of the immune response of patients. “What we do is a type of vaccine against cancer that consists of extracting blood from patients, isolating the white blood cells, handling them, and educating them in a laboratory through exposure to tumor extracts of the same type of cancer that the person has. ”.
The cells used are known as dendritic and are part of the immune system. They specialize in identifying and processing pathogens or cancer cells so that they are destroyed by T lymphocytes. Given their characteristics, they form the basis of treatments generically known as immunotherapy. Once these cells are extracted, they are controlled and then injected as a vaccine four times, over a period of two months. After the vaccine is injected, an antitumor immune response is awakened, capable of traveling throughout the body and destroying any type of metastasis or tumor growth that is occurring in patients..
“The technology is flexible, therefore it can be adapted to different types of diseases. We have good experiences with prostate, kidney, ovarian, lung and breast cancer. We believe that in pathologies with solid tumors the procedure may result in a similar way in the future.”, affirms Dr. Salazar.
Advantages of TAPCells
Immunotherapy is a cancer treatment strategy that, although it is not new and has been in experimental models for several decades, has only generated interest in the last decade because its effectiveness has been clinically proven. Christian Pereda, CEO of Oncobiomed, highlighted the advantages of national technology over other therapies. “TAPCells, is an original technology, does not generate adverse effects and has a lower cost. As it is a therapy that seeks to strengthen the immune system, it helps to generate an immunological memory, so its activation is different from existing immunotherapies. This technology allows to complement other immunological strategies that are not capable of generating the same response as ours.”.
Pereda is emphatic in pointing out that This Chilean technology makes it possible to use the patient’s cells by adding a source of specific tumor antigen. “For example, for melanoma we add a lysate derived from cell lines of that pathology. Therefore, the TAPCells that are generated are capable of producing a specific melanoma response, but if that cell lysate is replaced by another, such as prostate, colon, or lung, we can potentially use TAPCells for any type of tumor.”
Melanoma and carcinoma
“The skin is a complex organ, it has various cell types. Skin cancer can be of diverse origin, the most common and does not produce much metastasis -therefore, it is the least deadly- is basal cell carcinoma. Then comes melanoma, which is not as common, but it is much more deadly”, explained Dr. Salazar.
Melanoma is highly aggressive. If it is detected in the early stages, it can be operated, removed and cured to a large extent, “the problem is that when it metastasizes it is very resistant to all treatments such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy and there life expectancy in general does not exceed ten months”.
