Scancell Company Profile

Scancell is currently pioneering a number of products that harness the power of the immune system to treat or prevent cancer. Based in new state-of-the-art facilities at BioCity Nottingham, Scancell is one of Europe’s leading cancer immunotherapy companies.

Scancell was founded in 1997 by Professor Lindy Durrant as a spin-out from Nottingham University. Professor Durrant, who is currently Chief Scientific Officer at Scancell and also heads up a leading academic research team at the University of Nottingham, is one of the most eminent female scientists in Europe and an internationally recognised immunologist in the field of cancer immunotherapy and vaccines.

Scancell already has four monoclonal antibody (MAb)-based cancer therapies in development. These products are designed to provide a passive immune response against specific tumour types. These four MAbs are:

• SC100 – an antibody that binds to the epidermal growth factor receptor and blocks epidermal growth factor signalling. As this signalling stimulates tumour cell growth, blocking its effects can inhibit cell growth and ultimately induce cell death.
• SC101 – an antibody that recognises Lewis^y/b and induces tumour cell death directly without the need for immune effector cells. This antibody synergizes with standard chemotherapies.
• SC103 - an antibody that specifically recognises a lung/bladder tumour associated glycoprotein.
• SC104 – an antibody that recognises a novel glycolipid and induces tumour cell death directly without the need for immune effector cells. This antibody synergizes with standard chemotherapies.        . 

Scancell has also developed a related proprietary cancer vaccine technology called ImmunoBody™ that stimulates the immune system to mount an active response against growing tumours. Unlike traditional vaccines which generally produce a humoral (or passive) immune response, ImmunoBody vaccines also stimulate cellular (or active) immunity. By delivering information about a foreign agent (such as a tumour) to dendritic cells, an immunological cascade is implemented that results in the production of helper and cytotoxic T-cells which act directly against the target of interest. Whilst it is relatively easy to produce a humoral immune response using traditional vaccine designs, Scancell's novel ImmunoBody vaccine technology produces a complete cellular immune response against cancer.

Further details about Scancell can be found at www.scancell.co.uk.