SOTIO’s autologous cell therapy platform, DCVAC, is a new approach to improving clinical efficacy for personalized dendritic cell therapies based on several scientific concepts:
DCVAC cell therapies are made from a patient’s own monocytes, a type of white blood cell, which are collected via leukapheresis. After collection, patients’ monocytes are transported to a central manufacturing facility and the cells are enriched and grown into immature dendritic cells.
By applying SOTIO’s proprietary technology, tumor cells from cancer-specific cell lines are prepared and killed using high hydrostatic pressure (HHP), a method that will lead to immunogenic cell death that increases their capacity to activate an immune response. Immature dendritic cells are then pulsed with HHP-killed tumor cells which causes the patient’s newly mature dendritic cells to express a cocktail of multiple tumor surface antigens.
Approximately 15 doses of DCVAC are produced for each patient and frozen. Patients are dosed subcutaneously with DCVAC on an ongoing, outpatient basis to reactivate and continually boost the antitumor immune response, potentially improving outcomes. Overall, the time for cell collection shipment, manufacturing and quality control is between 25-30 days.