What is the difference between a vaccine that is personalized versus a shared or off-the-shelf or allogeneic vaccine? If you're using materials that are just shared, let's say for instance antigens that are on different myeloma cells and something that stimulates the immune system that's just a chemical, something you can take off the shelf, that might be called a shared vaccine. If you're trying to use the tools of a particular patient, so a CAR T-cell is an example of that, you're manipulating the T-cells of that patient and returning it to them. So in that way a personalized vaccine, ours is an example, is we're using that patient's myeloma cells, that patient's specific mutations, and then combining them with something that stimulates, in our case, that patient's dendritic cells. I think there's an idea that personalized vaccines or personalized immune therapy are a little bit harder to make. They involve more manipulation, they involve doing stuff that's unique to each patient. But we certainly see in the example of CAR T-cells, for instance, that if they're powerful and work, it's worth the effort. So that's part of the work that right now is going on with vaccines. How long does a myeloma vaccine take to manufacture? So if they're off the shelf, then of course it takes no time, but in the personalized approaches, it's much like CARS, it takes typically about one to two weeks to make, for instance, our vaccine, and then a period of time that you have to make sure that the sterility and other things are met. So it's about three to four weeks as well.
HealthTree • February 18, 2022