August 18, 2020 -- AgilVax has been awarded a $1.2 million Fast Track Small Business Innovation Research grant by the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) to study a vaccine candidate.
The funding will support a preclinical efficacy study, manufacturing stability studies, and a nonclinical toxicology study for Ax09, a virus-like particle therapeutic vaccine.
The company has three development programs targeting xCT, a cystine-glutamate antiporter, to treat multiple types of cancer:
Expression of xCT is low in normal cells but is elevated in multiple types of cancer and correlates to increases in intracellular reactive oxygen species. The programs aim to reduce oxidative stress induced by cancer cell metabolism.