European Patent to Strengthen Medigene's Dendritic Cell (DC) Vaccines Program

Medigene AG / European Patent to Strengthen Medigene's Dendritic Cell (DC) Vaccines Program . Processed and transmitted by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Press Release

 

Martinsried/Munich, 5 March 2015. Biotechnology company, Medigene AG (MDG1, Frankfurt, Prime Standard) announces that the European Patent Office has granted European Patent No. 2004807 "Composition for the preparation of mature dendritic cells", relating to the manufacturing of mature dendritic cells co-developed by scientists of today's Medigene Immunotherapies. The patent will have a term until 2027 and is licensed exclusively to Medigene Immunotherapies (formerly Trianta Immunotherapies) by the Helmholtz Zentrum München.

Prof. Dolores Schendel, CSO of Medigene AG, comments: "This new patent will substantially extend the protection for our innovative products. The patent protects our unique process to generate polarised dendritic cells, the cocktail used in the process and the derived polarised dendritic cells, which are being used in the ongoing academic clinical trials and will be used in our upcoming company-sponsored clinical study."

About Medigene's DC vaccines: The platform for the development of antigen-tailored DC vaccines is the most advanced platform of the three highly innovative and complementary immunotherapy platforms of Medigene Immunotherapies (formerly Trianta Immunotherapies). Currently the DC vaccines are being evaluated in two ongoing investigator-initiated trials in clinical phases II (prostate cancer) and I/II (AML, acute myeloid leukaemia). Medigene concentrates on the further development of DC vaccines in hematological malignancies and plans to initiate a further clinical study in AML shortly.

Medigene's dendritic cell product platform allows the design of new generation dendritic cell vaccines. Dendritic cells can take up antigens efficiently, process them and present them on their surface in a form that can induce antigen-specific T cells to proliferate and mature. This way T cells can recognize and eliminate antigen-bearing tumour cells. Dendritic cells can also induce natural killer cells (NK cells) to become active and attack tumour cells. Scientists of Medigene Immunotherapies have developed new, fast and efficient methods for preparing autologous (patient-specific) mature dendritic cells which have relevant characteristics to activate both T cells and NK cells. The dendritic cells can be loaded with various tumour antigens to treat different types of cancer and are suited for treatment of minimal residual disease or use in combination therapies.