Jennerex President and CEO Laurent Fischer: "We were looking for it."
Using an altered version of the smallpox vaccine, an experimental cancer vaccine from Jennerex Inc. extended the lives of liver cancer patients as much as 14 months, according to a paper published Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.
Showing that some of the toughest-to-treat patients with one of the most aggressive cancers may live longer than with today?s treatments could help privately held Jennerex of San Francisco raise more money as it races against Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) and other companies to develop a cancer-fighting vaccine. But it still must show a benefit beyond therapies like Nexavar from Bayer HealthCare and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: ONXX) of South San Francisco.
Jennerex hopes to sign a partnership deal this month and raise another $15 million to $35 million to further its studies of the Pexa-Vec vaccine over the next year.
In the meantime, 32-employee Jennerex is undertaking a key Phase IIb study of the vaccine, also known as JX-594. That study of about 120 patients who have failed prior therapy with Nexavar has taken longer to enroll than anticipated, leading to a six-month delay, said Jennerex President and CEO Laurent Fischer.
The study should have data to report by the end of 2013 or in the early first quarter of 2014, Fischer said.
So-called oncolytic immunotherapy ? using a virus to stimulate the immune system to mount an attack on cancer ? has been a hot but evolving area for biotech companies. But the research and the hype around immunotherapies to date has not largely translated into commercially available treatments, save for Bristol-Myers Squibb?s (NYSE: BMY) melanoma treatment Yervoy, or ipilimumab, and Dendreon Corp.?s (NASDAQ: DNDN) prostate cancer vaccine, Provenge.
Ron Leuty covers biotech, higher education and China for the San Francisco Business Times.
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