On April 25, 2016 Advaxis, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADXS), a clinical stage biotechnology company developing cancer immunotherapies, reported that the Company’s immunotherapy agent will be featured in a poster presentation and discussion at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper)’s (ASCO) (Free ASCO Whitepaper) Annual Meeting (Press release, Advaxis, APR 25, 2016, View Source [SID:1234511372]). The poster, "ADXS11-001 immunotherapy in squamous or non-squamous persistent/recurrent metastatic cervical cancer: Results from stage I of the phase II GOG/NRG0265 study" (Abstract #5516), was selected as one of 12 abstracts to be featured in the ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) oral poster discussion session on gynecologic cancer, where expert discussants highlight the most clinically applicable and novel posters. The Phase 2 study of lead Lm immunotherapy candidate in HPV-associated cervical cancer, axalimogene filolisbac (AXAL), will focus on how the findings apply to clinical practice and future research.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

The poster session will highlight the GOG/NRG-0265 study, a two-stage phase 2 study led by Warner K. Huh, M.D., Professor and Division Director of Gynecologic Oncology and Senior Scientist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, evaluating the potential of AXAL as an immunotherapy for patients with pretreated metastatic cervical cancer. The poster will include efficacy and safety results from the completed Stage 1 of the study and preliminary data from Stage 2. The study is being performed in a collaboration between Advaxis and the GOG Foundation, Inc. (GOG), now a member of NRG Oncology.

This year’s ASCO (Free ASCO Whitepaper) annual meeting will focus on "Collective Wisdom: The Future of Patient-Centered Care," and will take place in Chicago, Illinois June 3-7, 2016 at McCormick Place. The poster will be presented at the Gynecologic Poster Session on June 6, 2016 at 1:00 PM CT, and the poster discussion will be from 4:45 – 6:00 PM CT. Please visit www.asco.org for additional information.

About Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. In the United States, nearly 13,000 new cases are diagnosed, and approximately 4,100 deaths are reported because of cervical cancer. According to the WHO/ICO Information Centre on HPV and Cervical Cancer, about 3.9 percent of women in the U.S. are estimated to harbor high-risk cervical HPV infection at a given time, and 71.7 percent of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to high-risk HPV strains.

About Axalimogene Filolisbac

Axalimogene filolisbac (AXAL) is Advaxis’ lead Lm Technology immunotherapy candidate for the treatment of HPV-associated cancers and is in clinical trials for three potential indications: invasive cervical cancer, head and neck cancer, and anal cancer. In a completed randomized Phase 2 study in recurrent/refractory cervical cancer, AXAL showed apparent prolonged survival, objective tumor responses, and a manageable safety profile alone or in combination with chemotherapy, supporting further development of the Company’s Lm Technology. AXAL has Orphan Drug Designation in the U.S. for the treatment of anal cancer.

About The GOG Foundation, Inc.

On April 25, 2016 PharmaCyte Biotech, Inc. (OTCQB:PMCB), a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing targeted treatments for cancer and diabetes using its signature live-cell encapsulation technology, Cell-in-a-Box, reported that the encapsulation facility for its pancreatic cancer therapy is ready to manufacture PharmaCyte’s biologic product under current Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards (Press release, PharmaCyte Biotech, APR 25, 2016, View Source [SID:1234511375]). The facility will be used to encapsulate the live cells used for PharmaCyte’s pancreatic cancer therapy. The assessment was issued by Chamow & Associates, the biopharmaceutical consulting firm that specializes in the inspection of facilities for GMP compliance.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

Dr. Steven Chamow of Chamow & Associates stated, "Use of the live-cell encapsulation technology is very complex with many manufacturing steps and processes. GMP readiness of a biologic manufacturing facility such as the Bangkok site is no exception. In a relatively short period of time, with the relentless and determined cooperation we received from Austrianova, the facility is ready for GMP manufacture to produce the encapsulated cells that are a major part of PharmaCyte’s pancreatic cancer therapy."

PharmaCyte Biotech’s Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth L. Waggoner, commented, "We are delighted to announce this exciting milestone in the development of our therapy for pancreatic cancer. This is a major step in generating the overall Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) information, which makes up a large part of the pre-IND package we will be submitting to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We would like to thank Chamow & Associates and Austrianova for completing this process. With the facility ready for cGMP manufacture, we are now in a position to engage with the FDA to discuss our clinical investigational plan and initiate our first clinical trial."

Over the last few months, following an initial on-site audit of the facility by Chamow & Associates, numerous detailed documents were required to be prepared, reviewed and approved by Chamow. These documents include the quality management system manual and a variety of facility-related standard operating procedures (SOPs). In addition, all facility-related equipment has successfully completed the necessary Installation Qualifications (IQ) and Operational Qualifications (OQ).

Dr. Brian Salmons, the Chief Executive Officer of Austrianova, said, "We are exceedingly pleased that we were able to have our unique state-of-the-art live-cell encapsulation facility assessed as ready for GMP manufacture by Chamow & Associates. Both of the teams from Austrianova and Chamow worked together seamlessly and virtually nonstop to ensure that the facility is ready for GMP manufacture of PharmaCyte’s biologic product. We did so to enable PharmaCyte to reach the clinic with its novel therapy for pancreatic cancer at the earliest opportunity."

The Austrianova facility will be used to encapsulate the genetically engineered live human cells that, together with low doses of the cancer prodrug ifosfamide, make up PharmaCyte’s pancreatic cancer therapy. PharmaCyte’s cancer therapy attacks the pancreas tumor with "targeted chemotherapy," resulting in significant tumor shrinkage, the ability to convert some tumors from inoperable to operable, a reduction in the pain associated with the disease and an improvement to a patient’s overall quality of life.

PharmaCyte’s upcoming clinical trial in advanced inoperable pancreatic cancer involves placing the genetically modified live cells near the blood supply to the pancreas. The cancer prodrug ifosfamide is then given at one-third the normal dose. The prodrug is converted to its active form at the site of the tumor. In an earlier Phase 1/2 clinical trial, this "targeted chemotherapy" demonstrated far greater efficacy than the then "gold-standard" of care with no meaningful side-effects from the chemotherapy. Patients enrolled in PharmaCyte’s clinical trial will have non-metastatic, locally advanced and inoperable pancreatic cancer. They will be eligible for the trial if their tumors are either stable or progressing after 4-6 cycles of treatment with either of the two most commonly used chemotherapies for these cancers – the two-drug combination of Abraxane plus gemcitabine or the four-drug combination known as FOLFIRINOX. PharmaCyte’s therapy will be compared in such patients with the current "standard of care," which consists of the combination of the anticancer drug capecitabine plus radiation.

Although a large number of pharmaceutical therapies are available to treat cardiovascular diseases like heart failure, in many medical conditions treatment is still not optimal and, therefore, the need for innovative, safe and efficacious drugs is still very high in this indication. Biomarkers are an important tool in the preclinical and clinical drug development process; they allow patient selection for clinical studies as well as therapy monitoring during studies. Biomarker concepts in cardiovascular indications differ very much from those in oncology and are very diverse. The present article gives an overview of the pathomechanisms of heart failure and describes the socioeconomic impact of the disease and the biomarker strategies being applied in the development of new heart failure drugs. The focus lies on protein biomarkers that can be measured in the blood and on functional biomarkers that can be derived from implanted and wearable medical devices.
© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

GIDEON was a prospective, global, non-interventional study evaluating the safety of sorafenib in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma in real-world practice. The aim of this subgroup analysis was to assess the safety and efficacy of sorafenib as used by Japanese patients.
In Japan, 508 patients were valid for safety analysis. Efficacy and safety were evaluated by the Child-Pugh score.
The number of patients with Child-Pugh A and B was 432 (85.0 %) and 58 (11.4 %), respectively. The median overall survival time and time to progression in patients with Child-Pugh A and Child-Pugh B were 17.4 and 4.9 months, 3.7 and 2.3 months, respectively. The most common drug-related adverse events (AEs) included hand-foot skin reaction (47.8 %), diarrhea (35.8 %) and hypertension (24.2 %). The incidences of all or drug-related AEs were similar between patients with Child-Pugh A and B. However, all or drug-related serious AEs, AEs resulting in permanent discontinuation of sorafenib and deaths were observed more frequently in patients with Child-Pugh B compared with Child-Pugh A. Duration of treatment tended to be shorter as the Child-Pugh score worsened.
Sorafenib was well tolerated by Japanese HCC patients in clinical settings. Patients with Child-Pugh B had shorter duration of treatment and higher incidence of SAEs. It is important to carefully evaluate patients’ conditions and assess the benefit and risk before making a decision to treat patients with sorafenib.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

Phagocytosis is an initial step in innate immunity, which is also stimulated by signals via Toll-like receptors (TLRs); however, the cooperation of phagocytosis with signals through TLRs to establish acquired immunity is unknown. We found that phagocytosis is an essential process to induce an immune reaction against an insoluble TLR ligand. Cell-wall skeleton prepared from Mycobacterium bovis BCG (BCG-CWS), an insoluble TLR2 ligand, activated and matured murine splenic dendritic cell (DC) line BC-1 as well as a soluble TLR2 ligand, Pam3CSK4. Surprisingly, BC-1 maturation with BCG-CWS was completely suppressed by inhibiting phagocytosis, while that with Pam3CSK4 was not affected. Moreover, BCGCWS induced intense delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) reactions against mitomycin C-inactivated Lewis lung carcinoma cells but Pam3CSK4 did not. These results suggested that the phagocytosis process enables the insoluble TLR2 ligand to activate DCs via TLR2 comparable to a soluble TLR2 ligand in vitro, and stimulating TLR2 alone is not sufficient to establish T cell-mediated immunity in vivo. It is therefore conceivable that the process of phagocytosis induces additional effects on TLR2-stimulated DCs to activate cellmediated immunity in vivo.

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!