 DISCOVERY MOMENTS Women’s Health: Vaccinations: A new therapy for cancer? FRIDAY 12 OCTOBER 2007
A vaccine revolution is on the way, Philippe Monteyne promised participants, noting that his company, GSK, already distributes 3 million vaccines a day worldwide, 80 per cent of them in the developing world. Thanks to the company’s dual pricing policy, he pointed out that it could charge poor countries less for its products. He reported that 26 diseases could be prevented by vaccines. “With (clean) drinking water, vaccines are the most important contributor to health in the world”, he commented. He said GSK has an ambitious programme of projects in the pipeline. “If we are successful, we will be able to counter 90 per cent of the deaths of children under five years old”, he noted, adding that large numbers of people would also be saved from disability. In addition, there were vaccines in the making, including one against cervical cancer, that could benefit people not just in the developing world. Cervical cancer is caused by a group of viruses and kills a woman every two minutes in the world, with most deaths occurring in developing countries, he said. About 70 per cent of women would have been infected with the virus during their lifetime, though not all would develop cancer. Women could be reinfected, which was not the case with most viruses. Even more exciting, he said, was the possibility of treatments for other cancers. There were enormous possibilities for what vaccines could achieve in the battle against cancer. All ages would benefit. Initially, vaccines were aimed at childhood diseases, but increasingly they were designed to benefit other groups, including the elderly, participants heard. Monteyne explained GSK was concentrating on adjuvant vaccines which give enhanced protection for longer periods of time. Adjuvant vaccines are made from chemicals that enhance the body’s response. In Monteyne’s words: “They educate the immune system to fight cancer.” While most cancer patients had an immune response, it was often ineffective, he explained. The aim of the vaccine was to amplify the natural response. Monteyne described adjuvants to be “like a turbo in the engine … It’s a new class of treatment for cancer”. The next disease in the company’s sights, he said, was lung cancer. Large-scale clinical trials would start soon. Thanks to adjuvant vaccines, he added, governments would be able to stock up in advance of pandemics. The Swiss government was doing this with the bird flu vaccine. For patients, he said, vaccines had the advantage of not causing some of the common side effects of cancer treatments such as hair loss and vomiting. The commercial advantages included the lengthy life-cycle of each product and the high probability of research and development success. Research in the field of vaccines seemed to carry a far greater probability of success than in drug development since despite costly investment, many potential drugs failed to reach production stage. ______________________________ |