Dendreon Pharmaceuticals
Chartering a New Course in Cellular Immunotherapy

In the era of precision medicine, cellular immunotherapy for cancer treatment is definitely a major breakthrough. Cellular immunotherapy is the process of modifying human immune cells through modulation of the protein expression and reinserting those into the human body to give better fighting chances of treating certain types of cancers. Today, there are multiple research papers and clinical studies supporting the viability of cellular immunotherapy as an alternative cancer treatment option. More importantly, cellular immunotherapy often has fewer side effects when compared to traditional cancer treatment options like surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

But despite becoming a popular alternative cancer treatment option, in theory, there remain some gaps in terms of cellular immunotherapy’s practical application.

Chuck Olson, a veteran leader in biologic therapeutics and COO of Dendreon, explains that the industry is still very inexperienced from a cellular immunotherapy treatment development standpoint. Even though many pharma companies have borrowed and implemented cross-vertical automation tools to develop cell therapeutics, there’s still a unique challenge, specifically around autologous cellular therapies—where

each patient is different in their cell makeup and cell count. The unique cellular composition of every patient requires the pharma companies to pay attention to different cell makeup and develop the treatment accordingly. Automating therapeutics development with so many variables at the cellular level often cannot be accomplished with a simple automation solution.

While employing a combination of automation tools and human expertise may be able to solve this impediment, an acute shortage of the right laboratory personnel is another challenge that delays the progress of cellular immunotherapy. Therefore, even with the best interests in mind, many pharma companies fail to jump on the cellular immunotherapy bandwagon.

Fortunately, Dendreon is now taking notice of the roadblocks hindering the mass availability of cellular immunotherapy and is combining its years of experience in the biopharma domain to offer contract manufacturing services to other cell therapy companies. launch.

“We have been manufacturing our own cellular immunotherapy product, PROVENGE (sipuleucel-T)—the first-of-its-kind immunotherapy treatment for prostate cancer approved by FDA since 2010.Based on the experience and expertise we accumulated during the development and production of PROVENGE, we announced the launch of our contract manufacturing services division in 2021,” says Olson. Dendreon’s focus, in this regard, is to partner with cell therapy companies and help support their product development from the clinical trials through to FDA approval and commercial.

A Proven Record of Dendreon’s In-House Capabilities

Since it is PROVENGE that serves as the foundation of Dendreon’s expertise in cellular immunotherapy, let’s take a deeper look at this innovative treatment option. The immunotherapy platform used to produce PROVENGE was developed to fight immune-evasive diseases like prostate cancer that are able to evade the human body’s natural immune process. To produce PROVENGE, Dendreon collects the T-cells from a prostate cancer patient and then cultures them with a recombinant protein made up of PAP (Prostatic Acid Phosphatase, an antigen expressed in 95 percent of prostate cancer cells) and GM-CSF (a cytokine that activates the immune system). This fusion protein activates the collected T-cells to exhibit antigenic traits necessary for targeting and attacking prostate cancer cells. The ‘activated’ T-cells are then infused back into patients through a three-dose regimen to stimulate the immune system to fight the cancer cells. After the first infusion, or what Dendreon calls the prime treatment, the company performs two additional infusions over the next one month to boost the patients’ immune systems.

The past 12 years of producing this cellular therapy have now led Dendreon to utilize its extensive experience in cellular immunotherapeutics to position itself as a contract manufacturing partner, helping other pharma companies to expedite their immunotherapy development processes. Dendreon intends to tap into its extensive industry know-how to support these client organizations with a robust immunotherapy manufacturing infrastructure, including patient logistics and supply chain management. Being one of the first companies to introduce a cellular immunotherapy to the market, we have extensive expertise in this domain and can bring its entire in-house infrastructure to support the development of immunotherapies all the way to the final infusion, all under one roof.

Dendreon believes we are currently at the precipice of a medical revolution to showcase what immunotherapy could bring for cancer patients, and the onus is on us—as an industry—to skillfully unlock those benefits for a better and safer world.