Oncology

In the USA, the second leading cause of death by illness is cancer. The current estimates for cancer treatments such as chemotherapy represent approximately a US$10 billion market. The National Cancer Institute expects cancer to be the leading cause of death in the USA within 5 years. Cancer vaccines will become a major player in the vaccine market rising from current levels of $135 million to more than $8 billion by 2012 (Washington UPI – Feb 2007)

Traditional approaches to cancer treatments have included surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Because of the difficulty in removing or destroying all cancer cells, these approaches leave a high mortality rate and numerous side effects for many patients. TapImmune’s alternative to the traditional approaches to cancer treatment is based on increased knowledge of the human genome and immune system. Clinical studies to date have identified a large number of cancers deficient in TAP including but not limited to melanoma, colon, cervical, lung, prostate, breast and ovarian. TAP immunotherapy holds the potential of higher efficacy and lower side effects in cancer treatment and for protection to infectious diseases.  In preclinical trials for melanoma and lung carcinoma, animal survival rates of 70% were achieved using TAP immunotherapy and 100% survival when TAP was administered ex-vivo.

Infectious Disease

Many vaccines require the use of adjuvants to generate adequate protective immunity to prevent or treat diseases. As a result, most vaccines are combined with an adjuvant that enhances the ability of an injected vaccine to stimulate an immune response and thus protect the recipient by preventing or treating diseases. TapImmune’s vaccine adjuvant has shown 100 times greater potency than non-adjuvanted vaccines in animal studies when combined with vaccines.

Currently, there is only one FDA-approved adjuvant available for use in humans. The need to immunize entire populations against a growing number of infectious diseases will require greater efficiency of the primary vaccine inoculae.

The global vaccine market is currently at approximately US$13 billion and is projected to grow to $21 billion by 2010 – Global Vaccine Market Outlook 2007-2010  www.the-infoshop.com/study/rnc52955-vaccine.html