Antigenics (NASDAQ: AGEN) today announced that the Brain Tumor Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has presented an update on a Phase 2 clinical trial of Oncophage (vitespen) for recurrent high grade glioma (brain cancer) at the 2009 Joint Meeting of SNO (Society for Neuro-Oncology) and AANS/CNS Section on Tumors 2009 in New Orleans, LA. Data were presented in Sunrise Session #6: Immunotherapy: Current Status of Clinical Trials on Saturday, October 24.
Data reported in the first 20 patients treated with Oncophage show a median survival of 10.1 months. While survival data continues to accrue on all patients in the study, to date six patients (30 percent) have survived at or beyond 12 months. These early data show an improvement in overall survival over the previous long standing historical median survival of 6.5 months, and slightly favorable to the recently reported median survival of 9.2 months with bevacizumab (Avastin®) in patients with recurrent high-grade glioma.
“These are encouraging results that suggest activity with Oncophage in this challenging patient population,” said Andrew T. Parsa, MD, PhD, associate professor in the department of neurological surgery at UCSF, and principal investigator of the trial, who presented the update. “Quality of life is particularly important and to date there have been no significant events or toxicity considered attributable to the vaccine. The recent expansion of our trial to additional sites will help validate these initial results through increased accrual “
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