On October 19, 2021 Candel Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: CADL), a late clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel oncolytic viral immunotherapies, reported it has appointed Mace L. Rothenberg, MD, as a senior advisor to its President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Peter Tak, MD, PhD, FMedSci (Press release, Candel Therapeutics, OCT 19, 2021, View Source [SID1234591544]). Dr. Rothenberg, an industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience across government, academia and industry, will help support the company’s continued growth and acceleration.
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"I am delighted to welcome Mace as an advisor to Candel Therapeutics to further strengthen our team," said Dr. Tak. "His impressive background as a physician-executive along with his successful track record of regulatory approvals of numerous novel cancer therapies will bolster the company as it enters the next phase of development."
Prior to joining Candel, Dr. Rothenberg served as Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer. During that time, the company initiated, completed, and obtained emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine. Prior to that role, Dr. Rothenberg led clinical development for oncology at Pfizer for 10 years. In that period of time, his team developed and obtained regulatory approval for 11 new cancer medicines, including first-in-class medicines: IBRANCE (palbociclib) for patients with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer and XALKORI (crizotinib) for patients with ALK+ non-small cell lung cancer. Earlier in his career, Dr. Rothenberg was Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University and Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. He also served as an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and Executive Officer of the Southwest Oncology Group.
Dr. Rothenberg is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper). He received his BA magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and his MD from the New York University School of Medicine. Dr. Rothenberg completed his post-graduate training in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University and in medical oncology at the National Cancer Institute.
"Candel is at the forefront of one of the most exciting approaches in cancer immunotherapy," said Dr. Rothenberg. "I am excited by the opportunity to help Paul Peter advance the company’s promising oncology pipeline. He has built a terrific clinical development organization and I look forward to working with them in advancing Candel’s promising pipeline of compounds."
About CAN-2409
CAN-2409, Candel’s most advanced oncolytic viral immunotherapy candidate, is a replication-deficient adenovirus that delivers the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk) gene to cancer cells. HSV-tk is an enzyme that locally converts orally administered valacyclovir into a toxic metabolite that kills nearby cancer cells. The intra-tumoral administration results in the release of tumor-specific neoantigens in the microenvironment. At the same time, the adenoviral serotype 5 capsid protein elicits a strong pro-inflammatory signal in the tumor microenvironment. This creates the optimal conditions to induce a specific CD8+ T cell mediated response against the injected tumor and uninjected distant metastases for broad anti-tumor activity.
Because of its versatility, CAN-2409 has the potential to treat a broad range of solid tumors. Monotherapy activity as well as combination activity with standard of care radiotherapy, surgery, chemotherapy, and immune checkpoint inhibitors have previously been shown in several preclinical and clinical settings. Furthermore, CAN-2409 presents a favorable tolerability profile; more than 700 patients have been dosed to date, supporting the potential for combination with other therapeutic strategies without inordinate concern of overlapping adverse events. Currently, Candel is evaluating the effects of treatment with CAN-2409 in localized, non-metastatic prostate cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, high-grade glioma, and pancreatic cancer in ongoing clinical trials.
About CAN-3110
CAN-3110 is an HSV replication-competent oncolytic virus engineered to enhance selective killing of cancer cells while sparing neighboring healthy cells. CAN-3110 selectively expresses ICP34.5, a key gene in HSV replication, in tumor cells that overexpress nestin, a cytoskeletal protein. Nestin is highly expressed in high-grade glioma cells and other tumor tissues, but it is absent in the healthy adult brain.
Candel is evaluating the effects of treatment with CAN-3110 in recurrent high-grade glioma. Encouraging clinical results of the ongoing phase 1 clinical trial were recently presented at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting.