BriaCell Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel immunotherapies to transform cancer care, has announced that Bria-MEL+, its personalised whole cell melanoma (skin cancer) immunotherapy vaccine candidate, has achieved a key genetic engineering milestone, advancing the programme toward clinical development.
Bria-MEL+ is a cell-based therapeutic cancer vaccine designed to harness a patient’s own immune system to combat melanoma. The programme is personalised yet ‘off-the-shelf’: a simple patient saliva test will determine which of the several premanufactured treatment cell lines will be selected for personalised treatment, avoiding the need to manufacture a unique product for each individual patient.
The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 112,000 new cases of melanomas will be diagnosed in the US in 2026, including about 65,400 in men and 46,600 in women. Based on 2021-23 Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results data, approximately 2.2% of men and women will be diagnosed with skin melanoma during their lifetime.
Despite major advances in treatment, melanoma remains a significant unmet medical need. Approximately 8,510 people are expected to die from melanoma in the US in 2026, including about 5,500 men and 3,010 women. Melanoma accounts for only about 1% of skin cancers but causes the large majority of skin cancer deaths.
“Bria-MEL+ is designed to combine the advantages of personalised immunotherapy with the accessibility of an off-the-shelf vaccine,” said William V Williams, President and CEO of BriaCell. “By eliminating individualised manufacturing, we believe this approach has the potential to broaden access, shorten treatment timelines and reduce treatment costs while preserving patient-specific matching.”
BriaCell’s Chief Scientific Officer, Miguel A Lopez-Lago, added: “Building on the encouraging efficacy and tolerability results from BriaCell’s metastatic breast cancer immunotherapy programme, we continue to expand our pipeline with additional personalised, cell-based immunotherapy vaccine candidates, including Bria-MEL+ for melanoma.”
Bria-MEL+ is designed to activate multiple components of the immune system, including innate and adaptive immune responses, to target and destroy melanoma cells. The programme is derived from BriaCell’s Bria-OTS+ (off-the-shelf) cellular immunotherapy platform and is being developed using premanufactured cell lines selected through patient HLA matching.