Our Technology
The central theme around which Lipotek has focussed its development programs is that novel vaccines must harness the important immune regulatory function of Dendritic Cells (DCs). These cells are at the centre of immune response induction as they are the only antigen presenting cells that can efficiently prime naïve T cells.
The Lipotek platform technologies have been designed to facilitate the specific delivery of antigen(s) to DCs in vitro while at the same time ensuring that those cells are adequately stimulated to induce an appropriate immune response. Two platform technologies are in pre-clinical stage development and a number of others are in the pipeline.
‘Lipovaxin’ enables DC-specific targeting of suites of antigens carried by modified membrane vesicles, together with appropriate DC maturation signals. This is a powerful but complex multi-component vaccine strategy with potential applications in cancer, tuberculosis and malaria vaccine developments. The first selected target for Lipovaxin is malignant melanoma for which a Phase I/II clinical trial has been scheduled for second half 2007.
‘Lipokel’ allows for less complex constructs to be developed to enable single recombinant proteins to be targeted to DCs while at the same time providing a maturation signal. These vaccines have particular applications against viral diseases such as influenza and hepatitis B/C. The first selected target for Lipokel is viral influenza of all types for which a construct has been prepared.
