Brussels, 03 Nov 2004
The European Commission is providing 1.6 million euro over two years for the fight against lung cancer.
Expected to start immediately, the new international project, funded under the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) brings together five partners from three EU countries in the search for new vaccine therapies for lung cancer, the deadliest form of cancer.
'We are delighted to be participating in such a prestigious research collaboration,' said Anthony Walker, the Chief Executive of UK company Onyvax, one of the partners in the project. 'Following the successful Phase II clinical trial results for Onyvax-P, a cell vaccine for prostate cancer, our strategy is to roll out the technology to a range of other cancer types. This collaboration will successfully launch our lung cancer programme.'
Currently, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women and the number of cases continues to grow worldwide. Accounting for approximately one out of every five deaths in Europe, lung cancer is responsible for more deaths than breast and prostate cancer combined.
According to Onyvax, 'despite considerable efforts, the overall survival rate of lung cancer patients has increased only marginally. The continuous rise in the average age of the European population, the growing numbers of female smokers and the joining of Eastern European countries to the EU that have higher rates of smokers will increase the incidence of the disease. The need for new therapies is acute.'
The five partners in this new project will, therefore, pool their collective expertise to develop new lung cancer cell lines, bring about new vaccine approaches and discover and validate novel lung cancer antigens.
For more information, please contact:
Dr Anthony Walker
Tel: +44 208 6829494
Item source: http:///dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?C ALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN= EN_RCN_ID:22865