Oncolytics Biotech Inc. (NASDAQ:ONC) has announced that it has published clinical data from its AWARE-1 early breast cancer trial in an e-poster. The company published the data on the ePoster on May 23, and the data was presented at the 2020 European Society of Medical Oncology Breast Cancer Meeting.
Pelareorep induced an immune response in the tumor area
According to the publication, the data indicates that there was a palereorep-induced adaptive immune response in the tumor microenvironment. Similarly, there was a possibility of a predictable biomarker identifying those breast cancer patients that are likely to be responsive to pelareorep.
Aleix Prat, the lead investigator and co-author of the AWARE-1 study, indicated that initial data from the study showed a pelareorep-prompted adaptive immune response in the TME, which is encouraging as this supports the trial design and study rationale. Prat indicated that there were observed increases in CeITIL related with the encouraging treatment response that are noteworthy. Equally, the lead investigator said that the data supported using T-cell clonality as a prognostic and predictive pelareorep response biomarker and the ability to precisely identify breast cancer patients that are likely to respond to treatment favorably.
Data helps draw the correlation between CeITIL and T cell clonality
The study combines pelareorep with the patient’s appropriate intervention plus or without atezolizumab, followed by surgery in patients with onset breast cancer. So far, there have been 13 patients treated in the study, including the completion of the first cohort of patients with HER2/HER+ disease that received pelareorep with letrozole.
Oncolytics Chief Medical Officer Rita Laeufle said that the AWARE-1 study offers the company an opportunity to view variations in tumor immune environment after administering pelareorep intravenously to treatment naïve onset breast cancer. In the study design, the company used biopsies, which easily assessed the correlation between CeITIL and T cell clonality, which is a measure of tumor inflammation in early breast cancer patients. Rita added that from the results, it is possible to enrich the tumor immune environment and thus enhance PD-L1 expression.
