Study Explores Combination of 2 Cancer Vaccine for HPV16+ Cancers

Marshall Posner, MD, a professor of medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology at Mount Sinai, discusses a study exploring the use of HB-201 and HB-202 vaccines in patients with HPV16-positive cancers.

According to Posner, synergy has been observed with this treatment strategy in preclinical models and this is the first study to test its use in human with HPV16-positive cancers. The goal of the study is to determine safety and preliminary anti-tumor activity.

Preliminary findings from the study were presented during the European Society of Medical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Transcription:

0:08 | This is a first in human phase 1 trial with expansion cohorts, to occur later, of 2 vaccines. One is a lympho-choriomeningitis virus-based arenavirus vaccine and the other is a pichinde virus-based vaccine, both of which express the E6 and E7 proteins, and both are based on viruses infecting antigen presenting cells. The E6 and E7 proteins were going to be processed and presented to the immune system in the context of an inflammatory response to the virus. Neither of these viruses are human attacking viruses, so they won't cause any significant pathology in humans. And these were the phase one studies looking at the HB-201 vaccine by itself, and then alternating regimen with Hb-201 and HB-202, which has been shown in animal models to be actually synergistic in anti-tumor activity.

1:11 | This particular presentation is about the safety and potential efficacy of combining these vaccines with pembrolizumab. So, the later on trials will include pembrolizumab in the process, but this was an early attempt to see what pembrolizumab could do, but primarily to look at the safety.