SAN FRANCISCO and LONDON, May 14, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Treos Bio Limited, an immuno-oncology company developing next-generation, off-the-shelf precision cancer vaccines coupled with companion diagnostics, today said investigators dosed the first patient in its Phase 1 trial of PolyPEPI™ 1018, the company’s investigational precision cancer vaccine for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).
The phase 1 trial is investigating the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the PolyPEPI 1018 CRC Vaccine as an add-on treatment to the standard-of-care maintenance therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Vaccine induced T cell immune responses and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes will be determined by bioassays and the correlation with the predicted T cell immune responses will also be assessed. Mayo Clinic is serving as the only U.S. site for the study.
Despite advances made in therapies to treat colorectal cancer, metastatic colorectal cancer continues to be poorly addressed by available therapies and is today the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
“While Treos has made great progress and we are proud to achieve this milestone of dosing the first patient in this first-in-man study of our precision cancer vaccine, we feel the urgency of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer in search of better therapeutic options,” said Dr. Menghis Bairu, Executive Chairman of Treos.
A total of 10 adult patients between the ages of 18 and 75, who have experienced either a partial response or stable disease during first‑line treatment with a systemic chemotherapy regimen and one biological therapy regimen, are being enrolled in the study. Patients interested in participating in the study can find a fuller description of the enrollment criteria on the ClinicalTrials.gov website [ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03391232].
“Treos has long worked to understand how to stimulate the human immune system to destroy tumor cells without attacking healthy cells,” said Franco Lori, M.D, Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of Treos Bio. “As we treat the first patient in this study of our off-the-shelf, precision cancer vaccine, it moves us one step closer to addressing an unmet need of patients and combatting this deadly disease.”
About PolyPEPI™ 1018 CRC Vaccine
The vaccine contains six synthetic peptides that are precisely selected to induce T cell responses against 12 epitopes from seven cancer testis antigens (CTAs) most frequently expressed in colorectal cancers. These peptides are optimized with the PEPI biomarker to induce robust and lasting CRC specific T cell responses.
About Colorectal Cancer
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide, accounting for 9.7 percent of all cancers apart from non-melanoma skin cancers with nearly 700,000 deaths in 2012 from colorectal cancer worldwide, according to GLOBOCAN. While improvements in cancer care have boosted survival rates for all stages of colorectal cancer in the past two decades, the prognosis for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer remains grim. The five-year relative survival rate for patients with metastatic colon cancer is just 11 percent. For patients with metastatic rectal cancer, the five-year relative survival rate is just 12 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.
About Treos Bio, Ltd.
Treos Bio is headquartered in London, with operational subsidiaries in Budapest, Hungary and San Francisco. Treos Bio uses data science and proprietary biomarkers to develop its precision cancer vaccines, with substantially shortened development timelines and at lower costs. Treos Bio’s off-the-shelf cancer vaccines are designed to exclude autoimmunity and induce tumor specific immune responses to be safer and more effective in patients who cannot benefit from current immunotherapies. Treos Bio’s novel biomarkers will support the development of in vitro companion diagnostic tests to identify patients who are most likely to respond to treatment.
Treos Bio has completed preclinical development of additional members of the PolyPEPI cancer vaccine family with companion diagnostics to select likely responders. These patient specific off-the-shelf vaccines are designed for a general population of patients with ovarian-, breast-, lung cancers, glioma, melanoma, and leukemia. Treos Bio patient focused vaccine design also supports the development of vaccines for single individuals and a population of individuals with a specific genetic background, including specific vaccines most effective in ethnic populations.
More information can be found at www.treosbio.com.
Contact
Daniel Levine
Levine Media Group
danny@levinemediagroup.com
(510) 280-5405