On May 5, 2021 TILT Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapeutics, reported that it has dosed its first patients and progressed to the second dose level in a monotherapy phase 1 clinical trial of TILT-123, a dual cytokine armed oncolytic adenovirus (Press release, TILT Biotherapeutics, MAY 5, 2021, View Source [SID1234579226]). The trial is being performed in patients with injectable solid tumors. Patients are being treated at Docrates Cancer Center and Helsinki University Hospital (Helsinki, Finland), leading international treatment facilities specializing in diagnostics, treatment and follow-up of cancers.
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The ‘TILT-T115’ clinical trial (1) is a phase 1, open-label, dose-escalation study of the company’s oncolytic adenovirus coding for Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha (TNF alpha) and Interleukin 2 (IL-2), known as TILT-123. A total of approximately 20 patients will receive TILT-123 as a monotherapy over a three-month period. The trial’s primary objective is to evaluate the safety of TILT-123. The T115 trial is also designed to deliver insights about the behavior of TILT-123 in humans, such as systemic tumor transduction following intravenous delivery and virus replication in the tumor, as well as immunological responses.
TILT Biotherapeutics’ CEO, Akseli Hemminki, a biotech entrepreneur and cancer clinician who has personally treated almost 300 patients with ten different oncolytic viruses, said, "We are pleased by the clinical progress of TILT despite the recent restrictions caused by the pandemic. With our TILT-T215 melanoma combination trial already up and running in Denmark and France, I’m delighted that our TILT-T115 solid tumor monotherapy trial is now open in Finland, with interim results expected in Q4 2021. We expect the trial to provide valuable data in multiple solid tumor indications as well as provide supportive data for the future development of TILT-123 in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T therapies."
Docrates Cancer Center’s CEO Ilpo Tolonen, said, "Docrates is the first and only private cancer center in the Nordic countries, and we have received patients from over 60 countries worldwide. We have harnessed our state-of-the-art technology and the uncompromising competence of our cancer treatment specialists for the best benefit of our patients – accompanied by genuine caring. This collaboration with TILT Biotherapeutics is part of our mission to provide our patients with state-of-the-art individual cancer therapies, cutting-edge know-how and, whenever possible, offer new treatments that are still in the experimental stage, for the benefit of the patient."
The heart of TILT’s approach revolves around the use of armed oncolytic adenoviruses, using cytokines to boost the patient’s immune response to better enable it to find and destroy cancer cells.