Evaluating Nelipepimut-S in the Treatment of Breast Cancer: A Short Report on the Emerging Data

Abstract

Vaccine therapies for treatment and prevention of cancer have seen modest degrees of efficacy with wide variation related to the tumor type, vaccine type, adjuvants and clinical setting for their study. Over the course of the last two decades, various peptide vaccines for breast cancer have been studied. The current leading peptide vaccine for human application is a HER2-based vaccine known as Nelipepimut-S, which has demonstrated immune activity and promising clinical activity in some settings. This review covers the development of this newer peptide vaccine for both HER2 amplified and non-amplified breast cancer.

Keywords:

• vaccine
• breast cancer
• HER2
• peptide
• human

Acknowledgments

Drs. Dillon, Brenin and Slingluff are supported by NCI support grant: 2P30CA044579-26 for the University of Virginia Cancer Center.

Disclosure

Drs. Dillon and Slingluff have published studies on peptides referenced in this manuscript. The University of Virginia was a subsite for a clinical trial referenced in this manuscript. Dr Dillon participated in a clinical trial for Galena Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Slingluff is an inventor on licensed patents held by the University of Virginia Licensing and Ventures group for peptides used in melanoma vaccines. Dr Slingluff reports grants, non-financial support from Celldex for providing antibodies for clinical trials and for preclinical studies. He also reports grants and/or non-financial support from Merck, Immatics, Polynoma, and GlaxoSmithKline; non-financial support from Theraclion, outside the submitted work. Dr Slingluff also in the process of joining the scientific advisory board with CureVac. In addition, Dr Slingluff has patents on peptides used in cancer vaccines with royalties paid, a pending patent on biomarkers, a patent for a surgical device issued. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.