Positive results of therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer

French biotech company OSE Immunotherapeutics last week presented positive results from its therapeutic vaccine Tedopi in patients with advanced lung cancer, which shows a lower risk of death compared with chemotherapy.

“One year after the start of treatment, 44.1% of these patients were still alive in the vaccine group, compared with only 27.5% in the chemotherapy group,” according to results from a phase 3 (pre-marketing stage) clinical trial that was published in the journal Annals of Oncology.

“The study also shows that a vaccine instead of chemotherapy allows patients to maintain a better quality of life” and “fewer side effects,” points out Professor Benjamin Bess, director of clinical research at the Gustave-Roussy Institute and principal investigator. tests called “Atalante-1”.

These results “allow us to see new hope for these patients,” OSE Immunotherapeutics CEO Nicolas Poirier said during a virtual press conference, highlighting that more than 1,000 injections have been administered in various clinical studies.

Therapeutic cancer vaccines aim to train the immune system to specifically recognize and destroy tumor cells.

The Tedopi vaccine is effective in patients with the HLA-A2 gene, which is present in half of the population, OSE Immunotherapeutics emphasizes.

Patients included in the randomized trial had previously received chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

“The study did not complete recruitment” due to the emergence of Covid-19 and therefore “does not have the desired power” but “provides insight into which population group actually benefited” from the vaccine, namely patients who initially responded to immunotherapy before relapse, indicated Professor Bess.

A total of 219 patients in nine European countries and the United States participated in the study (139 patients on Tedopi and 80 on chemotherapy). The vaccine was administered initially every three weeks, then every eight weeks for a year, then every 12 weeks.

Source: AFP