Frame Cancer Therapeutics
Frame Cancer Therapeutics is a Hid-resident of the first hour. This privately owned startup, founded in 2018, dedicated to transforming the treatment of cancer by directing the immune system towards Frame neoantigens. Frame develops personalized cancer immunotherapies, that are designed based on the Frame neoantigens uniquely encoded by the genome of each patient’s tumor.
Technology
The technology is based on the combination of two recent breakthrough developments in genomics and immunotherapy. First, next generation Whole Genome sequencing technology makes it possible to rapidly identify the differences between genomes of healthy cells and tumor cells. Those mutations may lead to neoantigens and the development of a tumor. These developments make it possible to effectively create a personalized vaccine that is based on the tumor DNA sequence of the patient. The idea of vaccination is to stimulate the immune system, and to teach it to target neoantigens that it did not respond to before.
Second, new developments in immunology have made immunotherapy of cancer a new treatment option, in addition to the three classic pillars of oncological treatment: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Analysis of mutations across thousands of tumors helped Frame identify the best neoantigens to include in immunotherapy.
Personalized cancer vaccine for lung cancer patients
Currently, Frame Therapeutics’ R&D efforts have led to the development of a personalized cancer vaccine platform that will soon be tested in lung cancer patients in the clinic (start in 2021).
