On April 26, 2022 Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. (Nasdaq: PHIO), a clinical stage biotechnology company developing the next generation of therapeutics based on its proprietary self-delivering RNAi (INTASYL) therapeutic platform, reported that it has opened patient enrollment in the Phase 1b clinical trial of PH-762 for the treatment of advanced melanoma (Press release, Phio Pharmaceuticals, APR 26, 2022, View Source [SID1234612955]).
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!
"We are excited to advance our first-in-human clinical trial for our lead program, PH-762, to treat patients with melanoma. The start of this clinical study marks a significant milestone for Phio and our INTASYL therapeutic platform," said Dr. Gerrit Dispersyn, President and CEO of Phio. "This is an important study for patients with advanced melanoma as well, since currently, there are no neoadjuvant treatment options approved for these patients. In addition, the clinical program for PH-762 to treat melanoma is supported by a robust set of preclinical data generated over the past several years. These data show that local treatment of PH-762 inhibits not only local tumor growth, but also elicits an abscopal effect or systemic immune response in distal, untreated tumors."
The Phase 1b study, which is being conducted at the Gustave Roussy Institute, one of the largest cancer centers in Europe, will evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and anti-tumor activity of PH-762 in a neoadjuvant setting in subjects with advanced melanoma. The clinical study will feature a dose escalation of PH-762 monotherapy and is designed to allow for a data driven evaluation of the recommended Phase 2 dose. This is the first clinical trial with PH-762.
PH-762, activates immune cells to better recognize and kill cancer cells. It does so by reducing the expression of PD-1, a clinically validated target for immunotherapy. PD-1 is expressed by T cells and prevents them from killing cancer cells. When PH-762 reduces PD-1 expression, the "brakes" on the immune system are released and activates the T cells to kill the cancer cells. PH-762 is being developed as a standalone drug therapy with local administration to a tumor. In addition, it is also being developed as a critical component of cellular immunotherapy, more specifically to improve tumor cell killing capability of adoptively transferred tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy.