Nykode Therapeutics ASA announced an expansion of the pipeline with a potential first-in-class preclinical oncology vaccine program aimed at preventing and treating colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer begins as a premalignant polyp that grows on the mucosal surface of the colon or rectum and transforms into malignancy. The disease development and screening programs represent an opportunity to identify and treat high-risk patients at early stages in addition to treating patients with developed malignancies.

Nykode's novel vaccines are based on a careful selection and combination of highly expressed tumor associated antigens involved in the development and progression of colonic polyps to colorectal cancer. The program will incorporate Nykode's 4th module proprietary second-generation technology to further optimize the immune responses tailored to diverse target populations. The program builds on Nykode's differentiating competence of creating broad and robust CD8 T cell responses with the potential to break tolerance against tumor-associated antigens, as illustrated by data presented at Nykode's recent Capital Market Day.

Strong preclinical data generated in the discovery phase further supports the induction of potent CD8 T cell responses in both wild-type and HLA transgenic mice models.