Initially, the deal will focus on the development of the WT1 vaccine to treat leukemia, mesothelioma, and multiple myeloma, followed by additional solid tumor indications.
In order to assure that the vaccine clears the FDA and EMA regulatory process, the company has started development and regulatory strategy with an expert group in the US and Europe.
The company also plans to initiate Phase II clinical studies in early 2015.
SELLAS chairman and chief executive officer Angelos Stergiou said the deal underscores the company’s commitment to new therapies for major unmet medical needs and is of paramount importance and a significant milestone for them.
"We believe this will enable us to accelerate the development of the WT1 vaccine, and we would like to congratulate the Memorial Sloan Kettering research team for their superb work identifying very effective peptide sequences for this vaccine," Stergiou said.
WT1 is over-expressed in most blood cancers and solid tumors such as mesothelioma, as well as cancers of the ovary, lung, gastrointestinal tract, breast, and prostate.
As part of the deal, the company will have certain rights to future MSK findings in this field.
SELLAS chief medical officer Dr Gerald Messerschmidt said: "We believe the WT1 vaccine, one of the most promising cancer vaccines currently available, is a novel target to teach the cellular immune system to specifically attack cancer cells and to potentially improve patient survival.
"In order to understand our WT1 vaccine multivalent peptide sequence technology the peptide sequence interacts with various directing that teach or stimulate the specific immune system cells to recognize the cancer as foreign fight to kill the cancer cells that may be in the body.
"This license agreement epitomizes the fact of SELLAS building a strong cancer therapeutics pipeline."