Therapeutic Drug Delivery

Therapeutic drug delivery, including immunotherapy and cancer vaccines, aim to improve clinical outcomes.

Unfortunately, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide. In 2022, WHO estimated 20 million new cancer cases are identified annually causing around 9.7 million of deaths. Of these, 2.3 million are caused by infectious diseases. In particular, Hepatitis B (HBV) and Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) are responsible for 48% of these.

 

Did you know vaccines can prevent cancer?

Currently, two preventive cancer vaccines are available. HPV vaccines are highly effective in preventing infections from high-risk HPV types causing over 70% of cervical cancers, while HBV vaccines are in preventing Hepatis B infections causing chronic liver disease and liver cancer.

Check out our ‘Did you know series’: Did you know vaccines can prevent cancer

Also, read more in our HepB white paper and our HPV white paper.

Therapeutic cancer vaccines

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is commonly linked to prevention of Tuberculosis, but is also used to treat bladder cancer. Also, a dendritic cell-based vaccine (Sipuleucel-T) is commercially available for castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Additionally, several therapeutic cancer vaccines are in development or in the preclinical or clinical research phase.

Check out our ‘Did you you know series’ on melanoma and our blog on prostate cancer.

Auto-immune diseases

Importantly, immunotherapy supports not only cancer treatment, like breast and prostate cancer but also auto-immune diseases, like multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.