Phase II Clinical Trials Initiated With Immunotherapeutic For Lung and Breast Cancers.(Brief Article)

2002 FEB 20 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Transgene (TRGNY; TRANSGENE) announced the initiation of two Phase II clinical trials of its immunotherapeutic MVA-Muc1-IL2 vaccine candidate: one for the treatment of lung cancer, the second for the treatment of breast cancer.

The clinical trials will be conducted in several centers located in Switzerland, France, and Belgium.

Transgene's MVA-Muc1-IL2 product candidate uses a highly attenuated MVA vaccinia virus vector to express the Muc1 tumor-associated antigen found in most adenocarcinoma and the cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) to stimulate specific T-cell responses. Phase I clinical trials of the product candidate, conducted in the United States and Europe, involved patients with various carcinomas. Those clinical trials demonstrated a positive safety and tolerance profile of MVA-Muc1-IL2, and provided evidence of immune response in some patients.

The purpose of treating lung and breast cancer patients with MVA-Muc1-IL2 is to induce an efficient immune response to the expression of the Muc1 antigen in order to produce a strong antitumor effect as demonstrated in earlier animal studies. The Muc1 antigen is expressed in over 90% of breast cancers, in over 60% of lung cancers, and in most secretory epithelial cell cancers.

"There is a need for novel approaches, such as our immunotherapy program to treat diseases like lung or breast cancer, where prognosis is poor despite progress made in the current treatments. We believe that our MVA-Muc1-IL2 vaccine candidate can be used alone or, in some cases, in combination with standard therapies, to treat these cancers and others," said Gilles Belanger, Transgene. "We have made tremendous efforts ...