Nottingham, UK – 25th May 2004 – Scancell Ltd, the Nottingham, UK based cancer therapeutics company, has announced that it has secured an agreement with Cancer Research Technology Limited (CRT) under which Scancell has been granted an exclusive worldwide licence to develop and commercialise two cancer vaccines against Tie-2 and CD55 protein targets for the treatment of solid tumours.

Tie-2 and CD55 offer highly promising approaches to the development of novel vaccines using Scancell's ImmunoBody™ technology. Tie-2 is over-expressed on tumour vasculature. Therapeutic vaccines targeting blood vessels can cause vascular collapse and starvation of large tumour areas. CD55 is over-expressed by tumours to protect them from immune attack. A therapeutic vaccine targeting CD55 may therefore destroy tumour cells over-expressing CD55 leaving any remaining cells susceptible to immune clearance through endogenous complement lysis. A combination of both vaccines may lead to dramatic tumour regression by harnessing the body's immune system to 'reject' the tumour.

Commenting on the agreement, Professor Lindy Durrant, CSO of Scancell, said: "We are very pleased that CRT has selected Scancell to develop and commercialise these extremely promising products. This agreement offers Scancell the opportunity to develop two new ImmunoBody™ vaccines for the treatment of solid tumours. The collaboration with CRT is a further example of how we intend to accelerate the development of the ImmunoBody™ programme through partnerships over the next few years."

Dr. Keith Blundy, Chief Operating Officer at CRT, said: "Scancell is well positioned to develop the CD55 and Tie-2 vaccines and we anticipate that this deal will enable cancer patients to benefit from this exciting technology in the future."

Scancell's ImmunoBody® approach involves engineering a human antibody to express epitopes from tumour antigens over-expressed by commercially important solid tumours - in this case Tie-2 and CD55. ImmunoBody™ vaccines efficiently target the dendritic cells in vivo to stimulate effective immunity. They offer the potential to develop more effective vaccines against both cancer and infectious diseases.