Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc. (ITI), a privately held, Maryland-based biotechnology company is proud to announce a travel fund for patients enrolled in a Phase II clinical study that employs their investigational LAMP-Vax™ technology to treat glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).
Although the study, “Vaccine Therapy for the Treatment of Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma Multiforme (ATTAC-II),” is not formally sponsored by Immunomic, the Company is funding a program to bring brain tumor patients who may be eligible to enroll in the study to and from the trial sites, including at the University of Florida (UF) and Duke University (Duke) for the duration of their treatment. Enrollment for the study began in August 2016.
The ATTAC II Study is a National Cancer Institute funded, Investigator Initiated clinical trial that will explore whether dendritic cell (DC) vaccines targeting the human CMV antigen pp65 expressed as fusion protein with LAMP-Vax technology improves survival of newly-diagnosed GBM patients. The technology utilized in the trial is part of a recently announced licensing agreement. The agreement combines Immunomic’s investigational LAMP-Vax, with a patented and proprietary CMV immunotherapy platform, developed at Duke University by Drs. Duane A. Mitchell and John H. Sampson and licensed to Annias Immunotherapeutics and now Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc. This approach could harness the body’s immune system to recognize, attack and destroy tumor cells that express CMV antigens, which are thought by some to be over-expressed in a variety of human cancers, including GBM.
Duane A. Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program and co-director of the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy, is the study’s Principal Investigator. Sites for the study include University of Florida in Gainesville, with a referring site in Orlando, and a second site at Duke University, slated to open later this year.
“The travel fund will enable more GBM patients to receive this investigational treatment,” said Teri Heiland, Ph.D., Immunomic’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development. “We are proud to support such a cause and help patients and their families who are going through this process to have access to potential new therapeutic approaches.”