Jerusalem, Israel-based Immunovative Therapies is starting a phase IIb clinical trial for CryoVax, an immunotherapy cancer vaccine for patients with chemotherapy-refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.
Here's what you should know.
1. Phoenix, based-Banner MD Anderson Medical Center will lead the trial. Recruitment is underway and expected to close in July 2017.
2. To date, checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy agents have not "demonstrated promise" for metastatic colorectal cancer.
3. Immunovative Therapies believes CryoVax can treat patients that don't respond to checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy.
4. CryoVax works like this. Patients are "immunized against patented bioengineered immune cells." CryoVax then creates tumors infiltrated with immune cells and blocks their "checkpoint molecule expression," and the patient's body customizes a response to the patient's tumor.
5. Madappa Kundranda, MD, is serving as the study's principal investigator. He said the study will add to knowledge "regarding the interaction of the immune system with chemotherapy-resistant tumors."