TVEC for Advanced Melanoma Yields Stunning Results in 3-Center Study

Source: Cancer Therapy Advisor, April 2019

A 3-center studyusing viral therapy talimogene laherparepvec (TVEC; Imlygic) in advanced melanoma has reported some of the best patient response rates since the drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2015.¹

The research involved patients from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; the Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida; and The University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill; monitored between 2015 and 2018. It found that 39% of patients achieved a complete local response and 18% achieved a partial response to therapy, with follow-up times ranging from 3 months to 28 months.

This represents a significant improvement compared with the original OPTiM trial,² which led to the FDA approval of TVECand shows that the use of the therapy translates well to “real-world” use in cancer centers outside of the well-defined parameters of a clinical trial. However, just under half of patients don’t respond to TVEC at all, and the next big step to increasing its efficacy is to find out why.