On September 21, 2022 Imugene Limited (ASX: IMU), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company, reported that its Phase 1 MAST (metastatic advanced solid tumours) study evaluating the safety of novel cancer-killing virus CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA) has seen the first patient dosed as part of intravenous (IV) cohort 1 in the trial (Press release, Imugene, SEP 21, 2022, View Source [SID1234621307]).

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The dosing of this patient follows the recent announcement that intratumoral (IT) cohort 1 had cleared, paving the way for both cohort 2 of IT administration and cohort 1 of IV administration.

A multicenter Phase 1 trial, the VAXINIA Phase 1 MAST study has to date delivered a low dose to patients with metastatic or advanced solid tumours who have had at least two prior lines of standard of care treatment. The City of Hope-developed oncolytic virus has been shown to shrink colon, lung, breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancer tumours in preclinical laboratory and animal models.

The study aims to recruit 100 patients across approximately 10 trial sites in the United States and Australia. Earlier this week, Imugene announced it had received the DIR licence from the Australian Government’s Office of Gene Technology Regulator, allowing for expansion of the trial within Australia.

Imugene MD & CEO, Ms Leslie Chong said: "I’m very proud of our team and partners on the VAXINIA study who continue to push through the various requirements that come with running a clinical trial. We are eager to see the results from this new route of administration for the drug, in addition to that of the IT arm of the study."

On September 21, 2022 Alaunos Therapeutics, Inc. ("Alaunos" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: TCRT), a clinical-stage oncology-focused cell therapy company, reported early clinical data from the first patient in its ongoing TCR-T Library Phase 1/2 trial (Press release, Alaunos Therapeutics, SEP 21, 2022, View Source [SID1234621306]). The data will be presented during a proffered talk at the CRI-ENCI-AACR Sixth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CIMT) (Free CIMT Whitepaper) (CICON) being held in New York, NY from September 28 through October 1, 2022.

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"The encouraging data from the first patient in our trial highlight the potential of our non-viral TCR-T cell therapies to treat solid tumors even at the lowest doses in the study design," said Kevin S. Boyle, Sr., Chief Executive Officer of Alaunos. "Patients with solid tumors represents a large unmet medical need, and the results from the first patient are quite promising that our TCR-T cell therapy may offer them hope. We look forward to treating additional patients and are grateful for the continued support from our investigators, patients and our dedicated team."

Marcelo V. Negrao, MD, Department of Thoracic/Head & Neck Med Onc, Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center added, "These clinical data, where a greater than 51% tumor regression in a patient with NSCLC was observed, are encouraging. We believe this data adds to the growing body of evidence indicating that targeting shared tumor-specific hotspot mutations using TCRs has the potential to transform the way we treat solid tumor cancers. In addition, we believe that the manageable safety and tolerability profile is reassuring, and we look forward to continuing enrollment in the study."

The TCR-T Library Phase 1/2 trial is an open label, dose escalation study being conducted at MD Anderson. The trial is enrolling patients with non-small cell lung, colorectal, endometrial, pancreatic, ovarian, and bile duct cancers that have a matching human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and hotspot mutation pairing in Alaunos’ TCR-T library.

Key highlights to be presented:

First patient dosed was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer and had previously progressed on three prior lines of treatment. The patient was germline for HLA-A*11:01 with a KRAS G12D mutation, matching one of the ten TCRs within Alaunos’ TCR library.
The patient received standard cy/flu lymphodepletion1 prior to an infusion of 9×109 TCR-T cells, which were produced using Sleepy Beauty at the Company’s in-house cGMP manufacturing facility.
The patient was confirmed to have achieved a partial response with a regression of 46.3% in target lesions at six weeks, which subsequently deepened to 51.2% at week 12. T-cell persistence was ongoing as of week 12.
The TCR-T cell therapy was well-tolerated and a manageable safety profile was observed in the first patient.
The patient experienced grade 2 cytokine release syndrome (CRS) which resolved with nasal cannula oxygen supplementation and did not require anti-IL-6 treatment. Grade 4 thrombocytopenia and grade 3 anemia occurred and were both attributed to the lymphodepletion regimen.
Details of the presentation are as follows:

Title: Objective clinical response by KRAS mutation-specific TCR-T cell therapy in previously treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer
Presenter: Marcelo V. Negrao, MD, Department of Thoracic-Head & Neck Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine at MD Anderson
Date and Time: Friday, September 30, 2022, 9:00-9:15am ET
Session Title: Session 6: Cellular Therapies: Engineering T cells

On September 21, 2022 Sensei Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNSE), an immuno-oncology company focused on the discovery and development of next-generation therapeutics for cancer, reported it will present additional preclinical data on SNS-101, a monoclonal antibody targeting the immune checkpoint VISTA (V-domain Ig suppressor of T cell activation), at the Sixth Annual CRI-ENCI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference (CIMT) (Free CIMT Whitepaper): Translating Science into Survival, being held September 28 – October 1, 2022 at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York, New York (Press release, Sensei Biotherapeutics, SEP 21, 2022, View Source [SID1234621305]).

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Presentation Details:

Presentation Type: Poster
Title: SNS-101, a monoclonal antibody that is highly selective for VISTA in the tumor microenvironment, demonstrates favorable pharmacokinetic and cytokine release characteristics and potentiates anti-PD-1 responsiveness
Date and Time: Friday, September 30, from 12:15 pm-2:15 pm ET.
Session: Poster Session B

The full abstract will be available online as a supplement to the AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) journal, Cancer Immunology Research. The poster will be made available on the Sensei Bio website following the presentation.

On September 21, 2022 PDS Biotechnology Corporation (Nasdaq: PDSB), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing a growing pipeline of targeted immunotherapies for cancer and infectious disease, reported that checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) refractory patients have been selected as the optimal treatment group in the ongoing development of the PDS0101-based triple combination therapy in advanced HPV-positive cancers (Press release, PDS Biotechnology, SEP 21, 2022, View Source [SID1234621304]). After consulting with PDS Biotech, the study, conducted at the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the Institutes of the National Institutes of Health, has been closed to further enrollment given that the CPI refractory arm has been fully recruited. PDS Biotech and the NCI CCR plan to meet with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the coming months to discuss the registrational path forward for the PDS0101-based triple combination therapy as a potential third-line treatment for CPI refractory, HPV-positive cancers.

The NCI-led Phase 2 clinical trial (NCT04287868) is investigating PDS0101 in combination with two investigational immune-modulating agents – M9241, a tumor-targeting IL-12 (immunocytokine), and bintrafusp alfa, a bifunctional checkpoint inhibitor (PD-L1/ TGF-β) – in recurrent or metastatic HPV-positive cancers in patients who have failed at least two standard of care therapies including CPI treatment. Both M9241 and bintrafusp alfa are owned by Merck KGaA. Data from this study, as presented at ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) 2022, demonstrated that the triple combination therapy resulted in a 77% survival at a median of 12-months of follow-up in CPI refractory patients. Historical median survival rates for CPI refractory patients are 3-4 months.1 The triple combination therapy also appeared to be safe and well-tolerated with Grade 3 (43%) and Grade 4 (7%) treatment-related adverse events (AEs) reported.

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"The data generated in the CPI refractory arm of the Phase 2 trial investigating the PDS0101-based triple combination in advanced HPV-positive cancers seems compelling and potentially provides a foundation for advancing this program into late-stage clinical development," stated Dr. Frank Bedu-Addo, President and Chief Executive Officer of PDS Biotech. "For patients with CPI refractory HPV-associated disease, there is no clear effective standard of care therapy despite the severity of the disease. We intend to focus on the development of the triple combination therapy specifically for this patient group given the extreme unmet need coupled with the signals of efficacy observed in the CPI refractory Phase 2 trial arm. We believe this represents a significant value-building opportunity for PDS Biotech and our shareholders."

"The PDS Biotech team looks forward to our continued partnership with the NCI as we prepare to discuss our results in the CPI refractory population with the FDA to determine the most expeditious path forward," said Dr. Lauren V. Wood, Chief Medical Officer of PDS Biotech. "Accordingly, in collaboration with the NCI, PDS Biotech has decided to halt enrollment of the CPI naïve patient arm to allow both parties to direct resources on progressing the trial in CPI refractory patients."

On September 21, 2022 NKGen Biotech, a biotechnology company harnessing the power of the body’s immune system through the development of natural killer cell therapies, reported a publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Cancer Research and Cellular Therapeutics entitled "Durable responses using SNK01 autologous enhanced natural killer cells and pembrolizumab for chemotherapy-resistant advanced sarcoma: Case reports, review of literature, and future perspectives (Press release, NKMax America, SEP 21, 2022, View Source [SID1234621303])."

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The paper by Gordon et al. discloses enduring response data in chemotherapy resistant metastatic sarcoma patients who were treated with SNK01, autologous enhanced natural killer cell therapy, and pembrolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, along with a review of literature and future perspectives on the use of SNK01 in advanced sarcoma.

"We are pleased to be able to share the promising results of our SNK01 natural killer cell therapy in combination with pembrolizumab, in these two important case studies since metastatic sarcoma is typically associated with poor outcomes when treated with standard regimens," commented Paul Song, M.D., Vice Chairman of NKGen Biotech. "It is encouraging to see that Patient #1, despite being PD-L1 negative and having failed prior pembrolizumab, eventually showed a gradual tumor reduction with a 47% partial response, after which the patient underwent two surgical resections and achieved a sustained remission. Of note is that the patient has safely been on this regimen for almost 35 months without any toxicity at all and remains no evidence of disease."

"Patient #2 has low PD-L1 expression and had failed prior nivolumab. The patient showed a gradual reduction in tumor size, achieving a 38% partial response," added Dr. Song, "This response data is very promising especially since both patients had failed prior immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. It appears that SNK01 might be able to change the tumor microenvironment and suggests that SNK01 plus pembrolizumab has the potential to be a viable therapeutic option for patients with metastatic sarcoma, and especially in PD-L1 negative and low expressing tumors. Further studies are warranted, and we look forward to confirming these findings in a Phase II clinical trial."

The encouraging data from these two case reports suggests SNK01 combined with pembrolizumab may be a viable salvage therapy regimen for chemotherapy-resistant advanced sarcoma with manageable toxicity. The data also supports existing evidence that natural killer cells mediate a favorable response to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy while reducing immune-related adverse events.