Ugandan biotechnology company Dei BioPharma has filed seven patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) covering a range of messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccine technologies.
The applications, filed between August 18 and 25, were spearheaded by Dei BioPharma founder Dr Matthias Magoola as inventor and cover potential vaccine approaches targeting specific molecular changes associated with different cancers.
The company said the filings form part of a modular programme aimed at developing cancer immunotherapies that could be matched to patients based on the molecular characteristics of their tumours rather than solely on the organ where the cancer originated.
According to Dei BioPharma, the proposed approach involves pre-manufactured vaccine candidates targeting recurrent molecular alterations found in defined groups of cancer patients. In some cases, patient selection would also take into account human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type, which influences how immune cells recognise proteins presented by cells.
“Our ambition is global and deliberately long-term: to develop a modular immune platform capable of addressing the molecular drivers behind an expanding share of human cancers,” Magoola said in a statement issued by the company.
“These filings are an effort to build, target by target, the scientific and manufacturing foundation that will make many cancers preventable and controllable or less likely to return.”
Seven cancer targets
The seven applications cover different molecular targets associated with specific cancer types.
They include a BCR-ABL fusion-junction target associated with fusion-positive leukaemia and an EGFRvIII deletion-junction target relevant to certain glioma subgroups.
Other applications cover NPM1 in molecularly defined acute myeloid leukaemia, a multiplex RAS hotspot design targeting RAS-mutant tumours across several organs, and a TP53 R175H target.
The portfolio also includes sequence-attenuated HPV16/18 constructs aimed at cancers driven by human papillomavirus, as well as an omnibus platform architecture intended to support the development of multiple target-specific products.
The company said its target-selection strategy is based on identifying molecular alterations that recur within defined patient groups, are absent from essential normal tissue and are naturally presented by tumour cells.
Magoola has previously co-authored peer-reviewed research proposing criteria for evaluating potential cancer-vaccine targets.
The latest filings add to Dei BioPharma’s growing intellectual-property portfolio in the United States.
The company says Magoola has more than 100 patent applications filed with the USPTO, with about 70 having been published to date.
The portfolio includes previous applications relating to a universal mRNA cancer-vaccine platform and immune-therapy technologies.
Dei BioPharma also said that the US Food and Drug Administration provided preliminary comments in July on PSI-033, a proposed biosimilar to the cancer medicine Yervoy.
Founded by Magoola in 2014, Dei BioPharma operates a manufacturing facility at Matugga in Wakiso District, near Kampala.
The facility was inaugurated in 2021 and the company says it is intended to support the manufacture of vaccines, biologics, biosimilars and mRNA-based therapeutics for African and international markets.
Dei BioPharma received a licence from Uganda’s National Drug Authority in 2024 to manufacture a range of medicines.
The company says its broader objective is to develop and manufacture biological medicines at lower cost, particularly for populations that have limited access to such treatments.
Dei BioPharma said it plans to prioritise the proposed vaccine candidates according to factors including the prevalence of each molecular target, biological validation, unmet medical need, manufacturability and the feasibility of conducting clinical trials.
The company said it is particularly interested in applications involving minimal residual disease and the prevention of cancer recurrence.
The patent filings represent an early stage in the development process. Patent applications do not by themselves establish that a vaccine is safe, effective or approved for clinical use, and further laboratory, regulatory and clinical evaluation would be required before any candidate could become an approved treatment.
