GeoVax Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing human immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Notice of Allowance for Patent Application No. 16/068,527 entitled “Compositions and Methods for Generating an Immune Response to a Tumor-Associated Antigen.” In general, the claims to be granted in the patent cover GeoVax’s vector platform for expressing tumor-associated antigens in virus-like particles (VLPs) from a Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) viral vector and encompass GeoVax’s Mucin 1 (MUC1) tumor-associated antigen immunotherapy candidate.
GeoVax’s initial results with its MVA-VLP-MUC1 immunotherapy candidates have been encouraging. The Company uses its MVA-VLP vaccine platform to express abnormal, aberrantly glycosylated forms of the cell surface-associated MUC1 protein that is associated with a wide range of cancers, including breast, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, and lung.
David Dodd, GeoVax President, and CEO commented, “This patent allowance adds to our growing portfolio of wholly-owned, co-owned, and in-licensed intellectual property, which now stands at over 70 granted or pending patent applications spread over 20 patent families. We believe our MVA vector platform is well-suited for the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines based on the expression of tumor-associated antigens such as MUC1 and Cyclin B1, amongst others.”
Dodd added, “In addition to our work with MUC1, we also recently expanded our immuno-oncology pipeline with the acquisition of rights to Gedeptin®, a novel patented product for the treatment of solid tumors currently in a Phase 1/2 trial evaluating its safety and efficacy in patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Our license to the Gedeptin technology opens additional opportunities to potentially develop novel therapies for other indications as well.”
