NantHealth Chairman and CEO Patrick Soon-Shiong
A cancer vaccine has been on the horizon for some time as part of Patrick Soon-Shiong’s controversial Cancer Breakthroughs 2020 (formerly known as the Cancer Moonshot).
It seems the time has finally arrived.
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On Monday, Soon-Shiong, chairman and CEO of NantHealth and the high-profile leader of the NantWorks “ecosystem of companies,” unveiled the new program at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, Florida.
“This has taken us 15 years. 2017 is the year that we will implement the Nant Cancer Vaccine,” Soon-Shiong told the audience, in a presentation that was also shared on the NantHealth Facebook page. “To me, this is probably the culmination of all our work.”
The health IT forum apparently made sense for Soon-Shiong, who also revealed new Nant AI and Nant Cloud platforms that he described as the final components needed to produce a rapid and personalized cancer vaccine.
Nant AI involves what Soon-Shiong calls an “augmented cognition reasoning engine” that can transform complex genomic data in real time. To expedite the process, he said the team has spent ten years building a network of 390,000 fiber miles that can move terabytes of data per second.
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“Why do we want AI?” Soon-Shiong asked the crowd. “So that we can actually orchestrate and modulate the human immune system.”
His vision for doing so involves NantHealth’s flagship technology, the GPS Cancer diagnostic engine, which identifies the “unique biological signature” of a tumor.
It also involves NantKwest, his San Diego-based subsidiary developing immunotherapies that use natural killer cells. During the talk, these cells were presented as the immune system’s antidote to naturally occurring cancer growths.
Founded in 2002, NantKwest is early-stage and struggling. After a 2015 IPO priced at $25 per share, the stock is hovering around $5. Whether it’s a standalone success or not, the company will play an important part in the newly launched therapeutic program.
“I just got back from the FDA last week where, excitedly, now we’ve been given the opportunity to move forward on what I call the Nant Cancer Vaccine,” Soon-Shiong told the audience.
Nant is a both trademark and an acronym in this setting, standing for nanoparticle-protein, tumor neoantigen, activated NK cell and cytotoxic T-cell, according to a presentation slide.
NantHealth’s GPS Cancer tool is used to isolate the neoantigens — or new mutations — that define and drive a given tumor. The four vaccine components are then administered as part of a 14-day cycle that engages and attacks the tumor, while also preparing the patient’s immune response to take over the fight.
“That combination, given as a 14-day cycle, we believe will change the course of cancer,” Soon-Shiong said. “Now, people will say ‘well you make these kinds of statements.’ It took us ten years to methodically show to ourselves that each one of these elements could change cancer patients’ lives.”
The former surgeon has been criticized for not supporting his moonshot claims with peer-reviewed data. The theme continued at HIMSS. Soon-Shiong introduced each of the four components of the vaccine with emotional videos of patients who have survived potentially terminal cancer diagnoses. The emphasis wasn’t on the figures or facts.
If the cancer vaccine is indeed the culmination of 15 years of NantWorks research, the next few years could be make-or-break. What happens if the technology fails?
Two separate cancer vaccine programs have failed just this week.
Argos Therapeutics disclosed Wednesday that an independent Data Monitoring Committee had ruled that its Phase 3 trial should be discontinued due to a lack of efficacy. The therapy, Rocapuldencel-T, is a personalized cancer immunotherapy designed to recognize and target neoantigens specific to each patient’s tumor. This, in theory, would elicit a substantial immune response.
Meanwhile, a regulatory filing has revealed that a combination study involving Agenus’ autologous vaccine Prophage has also been called offer after an interim analysis showed poor data trends. Prophage is designed to “educate” the immune system to recognize the tumor as foreign.
The principles of a cancer vaccine are well-established. But that doesn’t mean it works. Even with the Nant trademark attached.
NantHealth did not respond to a request for comment about the cancer vaccine.
Photo: Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images
