immatics biotechnologies GmbH's Co-Founder Professor Dr Hans-Georg Rammensee Awarded the Bayer AG Hansen Family Award 2013
Hans-Georg Rammensee received his award at a ceremony in Berlin last night. The Hansen Family Award was established in 2000 by Professor Kurt Hansen, former chairman of Bayer’s Management and Supervisory Board, to recognize medical achievements in German-speaking countries. The award, which carries a prize money of 75.000 EUR, is presented every two years in alternation with the Otto Bayer Award and acknowledges innovative research in areas related to medical science and medicine. This year the Hansen Family Award recognizes the contribution of Hans-Georg Rammensee to the field of immunology and particularly its translation into patient treatment as recently published in Nature Medicine by immatics, the University of Tuebingen and co-workers.
Hans-Georg Rammensee is Head of immatics’ Scientific Advisory Board and co-founder of the Company. He is currently Head of the Department of Immunology at the University of Tuebingen. His work on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules, which play a vital role in immune responses, and associated peptides is considered a cornerstone in the history of immunology. He has authored more than 250 papers, many thereof published in journals like Nature and Science, and has co-edited several journals including Immunogenetics, Cellular and Molecular Life Science and European Journal of Immunology. He has received numerous well known scientific awards for his work, e.g. the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 1992, the Robert Koch Prize 1993, and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize 1996.
Dr Harpreet Singh, Chief Scientific Officer of immatics, said: “We are delighted that Hans-Georg has been recognized again for his pioneering contribution to immunology which has formed the basis of immatics’ innovative approach to developing therapeutic cancer vaccines. immatics has made significant progress with its lead vaccine IMA901 for advanced kidney cancer – progress that would have not been possible without the groundbreaking work by Hans-Georg.”
Professor Dr Hans-Georg Rammensee said: “I am thrilled to have received this award as the representative of a highly skilled and motivated team of researchers over the years. I am also very happy to see the progress that immatics has made in advancing its multi-peptide cancer vaccine IMA901 for the treatment of renal cancer patients. We have seen very encouraging results with this vaccine in the phase 2 trial making us believe that this approach has the potential to change the treatment of renal cancer, and most likely of other cancers as well, significantly.”
“Multipeptide immune response to cancer vaccine IMA901 after single-dose cyclophosphamide associates with longer patient survival,” Walter S., Weinschenk T. et al. (2012) Nature Medicine. Published online: 29 July 2012.
For additional information on immatics please visit www.immatics.com or contact:
Paul Higham, CEO
Dr. Nikola Wiegeler, Assistant to the Management
immatics biotechnologies GmbH
Phone: +49 7071 5397 110
E-mail: media@immatics.com
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
David Dible / Chris Gardner / Sita Shah
Phone: +44 207 638 9571
E-mail: david.dible@citigatedr.co.uk
About immatics
immatics biotechnologies is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing advanced therapeutic vaccines that are active against cancer. immatics’ lead product, IMA901, is in a pivotal phase 3 study after completing a successful randomized phase 2 trial in renal cell carcinoma. immatics’ pipeline also includes IMA910, which has reported improved overall survival data in patients with advanced colorectal cancer (phase 1/2 study completed), and IMA950, which is in phase 1 in patients with glioma.
immatics’ unique technology platform XPRESIDENTTM discovers novel relevant cancer antigens known to be expressed on tumor cells, tumor-associated peptides (TUMAPs), as the basis for its vaccines. In contrast to widely used existing in silico and indirect methods to identify peptide antigens immatics’ TUMAPs are confirmed to be naturally expressed in primary cancer tissue. TUMAPs activate white blood cells (so called cytotoxic T cells) against tumor cells.
immatics’ vaccines contain multiple TUMAPs to maximize the chances of clinical success by increasing the number of targets on cancer cells that they address. Phase 2 results with IMA901 and IMA910 have shown significantly better survival in patients who respond to multiple TUMAPs in both of these vaccines.
immatics’ multi-peptide vaccines are ‘drug like’, i.e. fully synthetic, off-the-shelf, easily scalable and stable.
immatics is based in Tuebingen and Martinsried (Munich), Germany.