TOP STORY: Dr. Magoola’s Dei BioPharma files seven US patents for mRNA cancer-vaccine platform

KAMPALA — Ugandan biotechnology firm Dei BioPharma has filed seven ground-breaking patents in the United States patent covering a modular portfolio of messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer-vaccine technologies, the company announced, positioning a locally anchored programme within the global effort to develop off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies.

The applications spearheaded by Dei BioPharma founder Dr. Matthias Magoola as inventor, were lodged with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) between 18 and 25 August and span a range of tumour targets — from recurrent fusion junctions and driver mutations to viral oncoproteins and an overarching omnibus platform design.

Dei BioPharma, in a statement announcing the development, describes the innovation as an approach in which pre-manufactured vaccine candidates are directed at molecular changes that recur across defined groups of patients — making the biotech firm to lead innovation in global efforts for cancer prevention. It’s the first an African based entity takes lead in such a ground-breaking initiative.

Individuals are matched to a candidate by the tumour’s molecular alteration and, where relevant, by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type — rather than by the organ in which the cancer originated.

“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,” Dr Magoola said in the statement.

“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.”

The seven applications cover a BCR-ABL fusion-junction target associated with fusion-positive leukaemia; an EGFRvIII deletion-junction target relevant to certain glioma subgroups; an NPM1 target in molecularly defined acute myeloid leukaemia; a multiplex RAS-hotspot design aimed at RAS-mutant tumours across several organs; a TP53 R175H target; sequence-attenuated HPV16/18 cassettes addressing HPV-driven malignancies; and the omnibus platform architecture intended to support multiple target-specific products.

Dr. Magoola has previously co-authored peer previewed work, that proposes a strict filter for candidate targets: that a target recur within a defined subgroup, be absent from essential normal tissue, and be naturally presented by tumour cells.

The development is the latest in a series of intellectual-property global milestones by Dei BioPharma and Dr. Magoola, with the Ugandan scientist holding more than 100 patents filed with the US Trademark and Patent Office. About 70 have so far been published by the USPTO.

In filings over the last two years, the USPTO has among others, accepted applications for a universal mRNA cancer-vaccine platform and a lower-cost immune therapy, and in July this year the US Food and Drug Administration provided preliminary comments on PSI-033, a proposed biosimilar to the cancer drug Yervoy.

Established in 2014 by Dr. Magoola, Dei BioPharma operates a manufacturing complex at Matugga in Wakiso District near Kampala — which is one of the largest such facilities on the African continent — inaugurated in 2021.

Licensed by Uganda’s National Drug Authority in 2024 to manufacture a wide range of medicines, Dei BioPharma aims to produce vaccines, biologics, biosimilars and mRNA-based therapeutics for the African and global markets, aiming to make especially biological drugs affordable to more than 90 percent of the world population who currently cannot afford them.

On the latest development, Dei BioPharma said it plans to prioritise candidates based on how common a target is, biological validation, unmet medical need, manufacturability and a feasible clinical pathway, with particular interest in settings such as minimal residual disease and recurrence prevention.

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