Cancer immunotherapy company Imugene Ltd (ASX: IMU) will be expanding its trial for the use of CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA) to treat gastrointestinal cancers – including bile tract cancer (also known as (cholangiocarcinoma) – and is now enrolling ten more patients with this condition.
The development comes after clearance for Imugene’s high dose cohort of the Metastatic Advanced Solid Tumours (MAST) trial, whose interim results showed that patients with bile tract cancer produced a particularly positive response to the treatment.
Among these patients, one who was treated with CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA) achieved a complete response and another achieved stable disease.
Participants in this cohort also included patients with thymic carcinoma and triple negative breast cancer.
Imugene Managing Director & CEO Leslie Chong said it was important for the company to jump on these results and test further for the impact of VAXINIA treatment on patients with bile tract cancer.
“As a team we’re particularly eager to begin the cholangiocarcinoma expansion study, given the meaningful difference we’ve seen VAXINIA make for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, including one patient with cholangiocarcinoma who achieved a complete response and another who achieved stable disease,” she said.
“It’s timely for enrolment to open as we present our VAXINIA technology to the 2024 Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Annual Conference later this week.”
Imugene is trading at 9.2c.