Danish techbio company Evaxion Biotech has published results showing the outcome of three clinical trials comparing the prediction scores of its AI-Immunology platform with patients’ immunological responses.
The AI-immunology platform can identify targets – called neoantigens – for cancer vaccines and predicts the specific immune response of a particular vaccine target against a tumor. In all three clinical trials, the vaccine targets with the highest AI-forecast prediction score also showed the most robust immunological responses in patients. This correlation shows that the AI-immunology platform can select cancer vaccine targets with a meaningful clinical impact.
Evaxion’s AI-Immunology platform is an AI technology that integrates several proprietary AI models to represent the human immune system. It can identify, predict, and design vaccine candidates for infectious diseases and cancers. With the help of its platform, Evaxion has developed three personalized cancer vaccines, two of which have completed Phase I and one of which is at the IND-stage. The company’s infectious disease candidates are all in early-stage development.
EVX-01, Evaxion’s lead candidate, is a personalized, peptide-based cancer vaccine for the first-line treatment against metastatic melanoma, designed with the help of the AI-Immunology platform. In a small Phase 1/2a clinical trial, EVX-01 – in combination with Merck’s PD-1 inhibitor Keytruda – benefitted 67% of patients with metastatic melanoma, compared with 33-40% of patients treated with a PD-1 inhibitor alone (based on historical data).
The safety and efficacy of EVX-01 (in combination with Keytruda) is currently being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial conducted across clinical sites in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.
Evaxion’s second candidate, EVX-02, is a DNA-based cancer immunotherapy that can induce a therapeutic immune response in patients with Stage III and IV resected melanoma, who have already received first-line therapy.
EVX-03, on the other hand, is designed for the treatment of advanced solid cancers and is a DNA-based immunotherapy.
Commenting on the positive clinical results of its AI-Immunology platform, Christian Kanstrup, CEO of Evaxion, said in a press release: “We are proud to have collected such strong clinical data documenting the unique predictive capabilities of the AI-Immunology™ platform across several clinical trials. The correlation between the platform’s prediction score and clinical outcome is unique and provides very solid guidance for the further development of personalized cancer vaccines based upon AI-Immunology™. Generating highly relevant clinical data is very important for our ability to apply constant learning loops, allowing for the continuous development of AI-Immunology™.”