ASCO 2024 - Chris Haqq

ASCO isn’t just a show for top 10 pharmas and Phase 3 readouts; it’s also a conference where smaller biopharmas share encouraging early-stage results, especially those that point to a new paradigm or mechanism of action.

Last month in Chicago, editor-in-chief Jonah Comstock caught up with Dr Chris Haqq, chief medical officer at Elicio Therapeutics, to talk about his company’s promising phase 1 data in cancer vaccines.

Elicio’s mission is to improve vaccination by engaging the lymph nodes, the “brain centre of the immune response”, Haqq says. And their latest trial suggests they may have accidentally created an off-the-shelf vaccine with a personalised genomic response thanks to a phenomenon called antigen spreading.

In the video below, Haqq explains his company’s intriguing results and also opines on the role of cancer vaccines alongside other cancer breakthrough technologies, offers thoughts about the limitations of animal models, and speculates about the future of AI in cancer care. Check it out!