The Holy Grail of The Oncolytic Virus World

Pelareorep can train the immune system to engage, target and kill tumor cells

The AWARE-1 window of opportunity study is evaluating the combination of our oncolytic virus, pelareorep, in combination with Roche’s Tecentriq® in patients with early-stage breast cancer. Our safety run-in of three patients from the study demonstrated the following:

• The holy grail of the oncolytic virus world — viral replication in the tumor via intravenous delivery.
• The inflammation caused by pelareorep created an abundance of new T cells, and Adaptive Biotechnologies—who runs our biomarker measuring T-cell repertoire—actually commented that this is some of the most robust T cell clonality they have ever seen.
• As an example, the average person in North America living in an urban or suburban neighborhood will create 3 to 5 new T cell clones a month. Pelareorep created over 450, including an increase in CD8+ T cells in the tumor after a single cycle.
• Importantly, the T cells are reactive to the tumor, suggesting we are creating the necessary tumor environment for checkpoint blockade in the presence of Tecentriq.

The biomarker that is being evaluated in the study measures how pelareorep is able to create and expand new T cell clones that are reactive to the tumor.

What Makes Pelareorep Different?

Pelareorep has demonstrated its ability to reach tumor tissue through intravenous delivery and treat metastatic disease. This is something for which no other oncolytic virus has meaningful positive data and something we have demonstrated yet again in the first few AWARE-1 patients. Secondly, our biomarker, which has led to increased business development conversations and resulted in an incredibly robust set of catalysts.

For more information and updates to our other programs, listen to the full webcast from which the above excerpts from Matt Coffey, President & CEO, were taken.