Effective weapon against cervical cancer: Ian Frazer and Jian Zhou named European Inventor Award 2015 finalists
- European Patent Office (EPO) honours Australian immunologist Ian Frazer and the late Chinese cancer researcher Jian Zhou for developing vaccine against cervical cancer
- Gardasil was world's first cervical cancer vaccine
- Used in 120 countries and administered more than 125 million times so far
- EPO President Battistelli: "Their invention has saved countless lives and will continue to protect many women from this devastating form of cancer."
Munich/ Brisbane, 21 April 2015 - Every year more than 530 000 women worldwide receive the terrible diagnosis of cervical cancer. Not only is it the second most common type of cancer in women, it is also one of the deadliest. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 275 000 women died from it in 2013 alone. But there is hope: Australian immunologist Ian Frazer and his Chinese colleague Jian Zhou, who died in 1999, developed a vaccine against cervical cancer. The method is ground-breaking because it focuses on prevention, which can be life-saving, in particular for women without regular access to healthcare. For this achievement, Ian Frazer and Jian Zhou have been named finalists for the European Inventor Award 2015 in the category "Non-European Countries". The European Patent Office (EPO) will present the 10th edition of the annual award in Paris on 11 June.
"Ian Frazer and Jian Zhou are pioneers of modern medicine," said EPO President Benoȋt Battistelli upon announcing this year's finalists. "In their fight against cervical cancer, they focused on the cause rather than on the symptoms of the disease. Developing a vaccine has not only saved many women from a protracted and painful course of treatment, involving surgery and chemotherapy, but also countless lives."
Vaccine offers full protection against cervical cancer
Scottish-born Ian Frazer based his ground-breaking invention on the research results of the German physician and Nobel Prize Winner Harald zur Hausen. For a long time, the medical world believed the herpes virus to be the cause of cervical cancer. In 1976, it therefore caused a sensation when Dr zur Hausen first mentioned the human papillomavirus (HPV) as playing a role in bringing about cervical cancer. The sexually-transmitted virus infects the skin and mucosal tissues, which in the worst case can cause cervical cancer. In the early 1980s, the German virologist then identified the so-called "high-risk" types of HPV, mainly HPV 16 and HPV 18, as the main cause behind more than 70 percent of all cervical cancers, as well as a number of other types of cancer in both women and men. Ian Frazer put these findings at the centre of his own research: As early as 1985, having emigrated to Australia, he set up the first research group worldwide to concentrate solely on developing a vaccine against cervical cancer. However, it proved impossible to grow the HPV virus in the laboratory, and a vaccine based on live viral elements was therefore not feasible. Only after many years of experimenting and various setbacks, Ian Frazer and the Cambridge immunologist and gene specialist Jian Zhou managed to clone HPV surface proteins onto a different virus that served as a template. The human immune system reacts to these harmless virus-like particles and forms antibodies, thereby building immunity. The vaccine derived from this offers full protection from the dangerous HPV types 16 and 18.
It took almost 15 years from these first successes until the vaccine was ready to go to market. In 1991, working at the University of Queensland (Australia), Frazer and Zhou filed a patent application for the missing link between the genuine virus and its artificially produced "representative". This turned out to be a milestone achievement for the now-widely available HPV vaccines. In 1995, Frazer and Zhou started cooperating with the US pharmaceutical company Merck & Co in order to develop the vaccine, called Gardasil. After three years of testing, the scientists completed the first trials on humans in 1998 with outstanding results. A cycle of three injections offers full protection against HPV for up to five years. Local mutations in the tissue of the cervix are prevented where the emergence of cancer is more likely than in normal tissue (precancerous lesions). After Jian Zhou's unexpected death in 1999 due to an illness at the age of 42, Ian Frazer continued their joint work until the vaccine was ready to go to market.
Frazer was the inaugural CEO and Director of Research at the Translational Research Institute, where he continues researching therapeutic vaccines for patients already infected with HPV. The vaccines are currently in clinical testing. The Institute came about because of his vision and his determination to assist other researchers to translate their discoveries into health benefits for the world.
HPV vaccine becomes standard
In 2006, Gardasil was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The vaccine is now being used in 121 countries and has been administered more than 125 million times. In 2013, Gardasil reached total worldwide sales of about EUR 1.49 billion. In December 2014, the FDA approved Gardasil's follow-up vaccine which is designed to protect against nine different strains of HPV, and sales are expected to reach about EUR 1.55 billion by 2018. At the end of March 2015, this vaccine received preliminary approval in Europe.
The WHO as well as public health agencies in Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States now recommend vaccination against HPV for young women aged 9 to 25. Most countries in the developed world now have government-funded school or community-based public health programmes targeting 12-14 year old girls. Australia also has a public health programme for boys, as HPV also causes some cancers in men.
Affordable immunisation protection for developing countries
In the western world, cervical cancer can be treated if diagnosed in good time, and, as a consequence, few women die from it. However, the situation is different in developing countries: According to the WHO about 85 per cent of all deaths from cervical cancer occur in low or middle-income countries. The University of Queensland has therefore waived royalties on Gardasil sales in 72 developing countries. The vaccine signifies a vital step forward in the fight against cancer, in particular for regions without basic healthcare and hence no preventive diagnostic procedures.
Additional resources
- Read more about the inventor
- View the patents: EP0595935, EP0750669, EP1002091, EP1144005, EP1325957, EP1359156
Treating the causes instead of
the symptoms
Even before Harald
zur Hausen's ground-breaking discovery, scientists had identified the potential
of certain viruses to cause cancer, such as the Epstein-Barr virus, the
Hepatitis B virus and the human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1. From a
medical perspective, being able to break the connection from virus to cancer
with a vaccine unlocks a powerful new approach: Instead of relying on
preventive screening for cancer or starting treatment after the onset of symptoms
in patients, doctors can now stop the cancer-causing human papillomavirus in
its tracks. Read more about other patented technologies to fight cancer
- Ten years of the European Inventor Award: a retrospective look at the inventors and ideas that have changed our lives
- About the European Patent Office (EPO)
- Study on the economic impact of patents and other IP rights
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Shepard Fox Communications
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