It was announced today that Vaccinogen, the US-based cancer vaccine company has signed an agreement with Dublin City University which gives it an exclusive two-year option to evaluate and acquire the revolutionary Direct Clone Analysis and Selection Technology (DiCAST) platform to develop safe and effective cancer vaccines and immunotherapies.
In conjunction with the agreement, the scientific team that developed DiCAST at the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI), including the lead researcher, Dr. Paul Leonard, has joined Vaccinogen and will spearhead the Company’s operations in Ireland, a critical component of its global translational research strategy.
Vaccinogen plans to use DiCAST to identify immunologically relevant data from the biological samples to develop the next generation of safe and effective cancer vaccines and immunotherapies.
They will have will have exclusive rights to evaluate DiCAST for a two-year period. If Vaccinogen elects to exercise its option to acquire DiCAST, the technology may be further developed beyond Vaccinogen’s initial antibody focus to other biologic and small molecule drug discovery, with potential use across multiple areas of therapeutics, diagnostics, and basic research.
President of Dublin City University, Brian MacCraith said, "We welcome this important announcement by Vaccinogen, and we are delighted to have entered into this strategic relationship to advance a technology invented at our Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) at DCU.
"Additionally, the appointment of former BDI staff to positions at Vaccinogen is a strong endorsement of DCU's wider research expertise in biomedical sciences, while the advanced facilities and research support that BDI provides were significant factors in Vaccinogen’s decision to base its Irish research operation at our Glasnevin campus.
"We hope that the DCU-Vaccinogen relationship can be a model for future academic industry collaboration and effective knowledge transfer. The underlying technology benefited from proof of concept funding for basic life sciences from Science Foundation Ireland and later stage development and prototype funding support from Enterprise Ireland."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
