Leading the Immunotherapy Revolution

Non-infectious viral vaccines.

Dr. Jonas Salk revolutionized medicine by creating vaccines that provide protection without causing the disease they prevent—the breakthrough that first made safe, non-infectious viral vaccination possible.

Dr. Salk and Spencer Trask Chairman Kevin Kimberlin founded The Immune Response Corp to apply this non-infectious approach to fight cancer and AIDS. The firm patented a cancer vaccine that demonstrated 90% protection against lethal malignancies, a fusion of dendritic cells and cancer antigens. This was the basis of the first FDA-approved cell-based immunotherapy.

Over 40,000 men with prostate cancer have received this treatment, which is especially effective for African-American patients who obtain a 48% improved survival benefit compared to white men. The team and facility making this drug also produced the initial clinical and commercial supplies of the first approved gene therapy, the CAR-T drug Kymriah.