On April 18, 2023 Evaxion Biotech A/S (NASDAQ: EVAX) ("Evaxion" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage biotechnology company specializing in the development of AI-powered immunotherapies, reported promising clinical data from its Phase 1/2a first-in-human study of its DNA-based personalized cancer immunotherapy, EVX-02 in combination with the checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Press release, Evaxion Biotech, APR 18, 2023, View Source [SID1234630236]). Data were presented in the Late Breaking Research: Clinical Research 2 session at the 2023 AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper) (American Association for Cancer Research) meeting in Orlando, Florida.
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The study, in patients with resected melanoma, showed that:
· All 10 patients who received the full dosing schedule of 8 immunizations with EVX-02 were relapse-free at their last assessment
· Of these 10 patients, 9 completed the full study and were relapse-free at the 12-month end of study visit. One patient was prematurely terminated due to non-EVX-02 related adverse events (AEs), and was relapse-free at the last visit at 9 months
· The combination of EVX-02 and nivolumab was well tolerated and only mild EVX-02-associated AEs were observed
· Robust and long-lasting neoantigen-specific T-cell immune responses were confirmed in all EVX-02 completers
· The induced T-cell immune responses involved both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells
"We are extremely happy to share the positive clinical data from our Phase 1/2a EVX-02 study at AACR (Free AACR Whitepaper). We met both our primary endpoints on safety, tolerability and immunogenicity and our secondary endpoint on clinical efficacy. With all 10 patients who completed the EVX-02 treatment being relapse-free during the trial and with robust and treatment-specific immune responses, we see clear signs of a protective cancer vaccination effect", said Per Norlén, Chief Executive Officer of Evaxion. "The EVX-02 data affirm our ability to select the right neoantigens, matched to the cancer of each patient, and provide further validation of our AI platform PIONEERTM. They also support our plan to fast track our next-generation DNA-based personalized cancer immunotherapy, EVX-03, to the clinic in Q4."
About the Phase 1/2a Study with EVX-02
The open-label, single-arm, multi-center Phase 1/2a study (NCT04455503) was designed to evaluate the combination of EVX-02 plus nivolumab in patients who had undergone complete surgical resection of late stage melanoma and were at high risk for recurrence. The primary objectives of the 12-month study were to assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of EVX-02 plus nivolumab. In addition, the study was intended to evaluate relapse free survival. Evaxion reported initial, interim safety and immunogenicity data from the first 8 patients in the study in November 2022.