00:00It's now in an age where we sometimes wonder about how far AI can go.
00:06Well, in the field of cancer research, it seems as though it can help tailor-make vaccines.
00:14Vaccines for cancer are still in their very early stages.
00:19Yet, researchers have found ways of combining RNA and artificial intelligence to pinpoint what's needed in each different patient.
00:30Well, one of those working on this is Dr. Moez Ben-Ali, Franco-Tunisian.
00:35Thank you for being with us here on France 24.
00:38Thank you for your invitation.
00:40You split your time between the lab and patients.
00:44Yes, I'm specialized. I'm a medical director and researcher in the field of anti-cancer drug development.
00:53My first task is to develop protocols and anti-cancer drug to manage patients with cancer.
01:00Because vaccines for cancer, it's still the dawn right now of the age, isn't it?
01:05To be honest, it's not a hot topic.
01:07It's not new things for us because we've spent a lot of time now for more than one decade working on the subject.
01:14We should differentiate between two kinds of vaccines.
01:19The therapeutic vaccine, and this is the vaccine that you are mentioning as tailored or personalized or precision treatment for patients with cancer.
01:30And the conventional vaccine, and we have already approved a conventional vaccine against cervic cancer, for example.
01:39Today, it's about another thing.
01:42The therapeutic vaccine is a vaccine that we can classify as a precision medicine, precision drugs.
01:52And as you are mentioning, we are using technology like NGS, next generation sequencing for transcriptome, the RNA.
02:00And we are using artificial intelligence to prepare a vaccine tailored to the patient's tumor.
02:12What do you do?
02:12You take a sample from the patient and you're able to pinpoint exactly what they have?
02:20Yes.
02:21Because I know certain types of cancer, like, for instance, breast cancer.
02:25There's so many different types.
02:26You can't have a one-size-fits-all vaccine for breast cancer.
02:30Yes.
02:31We can differentiate between the solid and hematomagaline C tumor.
02:34And here, for this vaccine, it's developing in several indications and several cancers.
02:40And the idea is, first of all, to sequence the genoma, but also the transcriptome, as you are mentioning, the RNA of the tumor,
02:52but also to get an idea to take a biopsy and to extract the T cell of the patients and to try to boost them and drive them against the kind of RNA of the tumor.
03:07And this is a tailored vaccine.
03:10The idea is to boost the immunity of the person against the cancer.
03:15And that's why I was differentiating between therapeutic vaccine, so vaccine in the idea to beat a kind of tumor cells and the conventional vaccine.
03:26How new is this strategy?
03:29Excuse me?
03:30How new is this strategy for fighting cancer?
03:33We presented at ASCO this week the result of a phase two.
03:39And I think that we will come soon to approve this kind of approach.
03:45Because this approach also is a copy of what we are doing with CAR-T, the shimmery contigene receptor lymphocytes.
03:52It's the same idea, we are taking the T cells of the patients, we are boosting them in the lab, and we are re-injecting them to the patients.
04:02So the originator of the drug is the patient himself, and we re-inject after that the boosted T cell to the patients themselves.
04:11So five years ago, first COVID lockdown, that's when most of us, including myself, first heard of the concept of RNA sequencing, which enabled the fast tracking of these COVID vaccines.
04:27At the time, as an oncologist, did you know that this was your path?
04:34Yes, you should understand that the vaccine that we used against COVID was developed first for oncology use, and it was in phase two, non-small lung cancer.
04:46And the idea of a kind of vaccine based on the mRNA is coming from the oncology field.
04:52Personally, I was expecting such development for COVID-19, and I even speak about since March 2021, that in December we can get a vaccine at that time.
05:06So the idea of mRNA vaccine is something that we developed, and we speak a lot, or we are working a lot in labs, and we start to emerge with what we are publishing today as a result from how our lab works.
05:22So incredible strides.
05:24Moïse Ben Ali, you're in the private sector.
05:26There is a lot of research, though, that's funded thanks to governments, and most notably the U.S. government, thanks to its National Institute of Health.
05:37Europeans saying to U.S. researchers, come to this side of the Atlantic, but a lot of scientists are saying, wait, we don't have the money right now to level up when it comes to the kind of funding that's needed,
05:51public funding that's needed for some of this fundamental research.
05:56Your thoughts on the fact that you're seeing these big budget cuts in the United States, do they affect you over here in Europe?
06:03At 100%.
06:05I can tell you that the majority of the innovation that we are using today, private or government, the majority of the innovation is coming from U.S.
06:14And when we see that U.S. government is cutting budget for research, it's a mess for us.
06:22There is an earthquake, if I can say, with the decision of Mr. Trump, the U.S. president, to reduce the cost of drug by 30 to 80%.
06:37And this could impact also the research, because biopharma will not find funds that will allow the development.
06:47I'm personally not of Africa, I'm not of Tunisia, and even if I'm working worldwide today, I'm thinking about the access to innovation.
06:56So I love that we reduce the cost of the innovation to give access to more patients.
07:03But unfortunately, with the equation that we have today, that only private and only U.S. will funds the innovation, it will not be fair.
07:15So that's why I think that the world should think about another equation to funds the development of the innovation.
07:22And again, even working for private, I'm part from many cooperative groups and many patient advocacy today.
07:30And I think that the government also should take their responsibility in funding research for the government.
07:39I think that worldwidely, the WHO should play a role, more proactive role, not just in pandemic area.
07:48They should play another role, giving access to innovation to the whole country.
07:54And I think a decision like the decision of U.S. also to go out from the WHO should give us the possibility to think about what will be the role of this institution in the future.
08:07Should we think about another institution that could play the role to eradicate some deadly disease like cancer?
08:15And as a researcher, I can tell you that we can eradicate cancer.
08:19Personally, since 2009, we were speaking about precision medicine.
08:23I have the first theory in precision medicine, and I was speaking about this kind of tailored drug since 2009.
08:30And I created an advocacy group called Cancer.0.
08:39The idea is to eradicate cancer.
08:42But the problem that I am facing is access to innovation for countries with less resources,
08:49and especially Africa or other countries in Asia or even here in Europe.
08:54So who drives research and development?
08:57Is it, like you say, the World Health Organization?
09:00Is it, who's the one who leads the charge?
09:03Is it the European nations, the G7 countries, the G20?
09:07Who should be in charge of driving, making sure that there is enough money for the kind of research that you do?
09:13Currently, unfortunately, the funds are coming from private, and especially from the biggest biopharma only.
09:20And that's why we can't blame them on the fact that the innovation is still cost.
09:26You were speaking about a vaccine that we can easily bring to the market, but the cost will be really very high.
09:32Today, there is another kind of treatment linked directly to the cure from cancer.
09:37This is the CAR-T, the Shimeric Antigen Receptor Lymphocity.
09:40And it was the primary drug that gave us the idea of thinking about a vaccine against cancer.
09:48The cost is really high.
09:51For one treatment, one dose is around 250,000.
09:57And patients to be cured from a disease like acute lymphocytic leukemia, when we have the first indication for this drug, is six doses.
10:07So almost 1.2 million euro.
10:10So it's really very expensive.
10:11So we can't blame biopharma because they are financing only the development.
10:18So we can't blame them on the cost, the high cost.
10:20I think that worldwide, we should think about a way to fund research.
10:26We should think that we should bring our part.
10:31And the best way to reduce the cost of innovation is to participate to create the innovation.
10:36So if we will continue to make that as the only responsibility of biopharma, we can't also ask biopharma to reduce a lot of this cost.
10:46And we can't ask them to give access to all patients or all patients on the world.
10:51It's my dream, personally, to give access to this kind of drug, to this innovative drug, to this precision medicine, to all the worldwide, to all patients worldwide.
11:02But unfortunately, we should convince politicians today and government to participate in this effort of funding.
11:11All right.
11:11I want to thank you so much, Dr. Moaz Ben-Ali, for being with us here on France 24.
