The vaccine was developed by the Center of Molecular Immunology, Havana, Cuba, and made available to the Cuban population in 2011. There are agreements in place to test it in the United States, Japan, and some European countries. It is currently available in Cuba, Colombia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Peru and Paraguay. More than 5,000 lung cancer patients have been treated with this unique immunotherapy, and several international studies have indicated prolonged tumor stabilization and improved overall survival and quality of life for patients receiving CIMAvax-EGF. CIMAvax-EGF is relatively cheap to produce and store, and has low toxicity. Side effects of the vaccine appear to be mild.

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CIMAvax-EGF is a type of immunotherapy that harnesses the body’s immune system to fight lung cancer.

CIMAvax-EGF blocks a type of protein — epidermal growth factor (EGF) — that cancer cells need to grow. It does not kill cells directly, cancerous cells or otherwise, but “starves” them by preventing EGF from attaching to its proper receptor (EGFR) on the cell. This connection is required for the cell to grow and proliferate. Without it, the cancer cell does not multiply, and dies. CIMAvax-EGF blocks EGF by manipulating the patient’s immune response.

CIMAvax-EGF consists of recombinant human EGF with the P64 protein from meningitis B bacteria, using Montanide ISA 51 as an adjuvant or “carrier protein” which triggers the immune system to produce antibodies against the EGF protein to neutralize it. This depletes circulating EGF from the blood, depriving the cancer cells of the capacity for augmented angiogenesis required for enhanced proliferation, survival and migration of tumor cells. For this reason, the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center group in Buffalo, New York, believes that it may prove most useful as a preventive vaccine rather than as a cancer therapy per se.