Yesterday, the French biotechnology company OSE Immunotherapeutics announced positive results for its therapeutic vaccine, Tedopi, in patients suffering from advanced lung cancer, as this vaccine led to a lower risk of death compared to chemotherapy.
The results published Monday by the Annals of Oncology journal for the third phase of the clinical trial (preceding the vaccine launch) showed that “44.1 percent of these patients were still alive one year after the start of treatment in the group receiving the vaccine, in while only 27.5% were still alive in the chemotherapy group,” reports Al-Rai daily.
The main author of the study called “Atalante-1”, Director of Clinical Research at the Gustave-Russy Institute, Professor Benjamin Pace, explained that “the study also showed that replacing chemotherapy with a vaccine allows for a better quality of life for patients” and reduces side effects.
In a virtual press conference, Nicolas Poirier, General Manager of Ozi Immunotherapeutics, said that these results provide “new hope for these patients,” noting that more than a thousand injections were conducted during various clinical studies.
Therapeutic cancer vaccines aim to educate the immune system to specifically recognize and destroy cancer cells.
Ozi Immunotherapeutics explained that the “Tedobi” vaccine has proven effective in patients with the HLA-A2 gene, which is present in half of the population. Patients who entered the randomized trial had previously received chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
Professor Bingaman Pace pointed out that the study did not complete the process of patients volunteering for the trial due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and therefore “it does not have the required power,” but it “enables us to understand which group actually benefited” from the vaccine, which is the group of patients who initially responded to immunotherapy before they relapse.
A total of 219 patients participated in the study in nine European countries and the United States (139 who received Tidobi and 80 who received chemotherapy).
The vaccine was initially given every three weeks, then every eight weeks for a year, then every 12 weeks.