Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc (IOVA)

[jondoeuk]

TIL in HPV associated cancer. The ORR was 28% in cervical and 18% in other types https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtsqGIGVsAAqe9Y.jpg There were two long term responders.

From the paper the authors state: ''In addition, the treatment requires surgery for procurement of a tumor from which to generate TILs, and the generation of high numbers of TILs takes approximately four to six weeks. In the present trial, patients underwent surgery and 29 patients received treatment (Appendix Fig A1, online only).

Another limitation is the patient-to-patient variability in the HPV reactivity of TILs and the infused cell product. Consistent with reports by others, we that TILs from a number of patients possessed no HPV reactivity or low HPV reactivity (Fig 2A and 2B, Appendix Fig A1, online only). In the administered T cells, the frequency of HPV reactivity ranged from ≤0.1 to 31%, median 5% (Fig 2A) and the magnitude of IFNg release ranged from ≤0.1 to 5.6 ng/ml, median 0.2 ng/ml (Fig 2B).

One strategy to circumvent surgery and generate a more consistent HPV oncoprotein-targeted cell product may be to administer HPV-specific T cells that are propagated and enriched ex vivo from peripheral blood. Another strategy may be to administer peripheral blood T cells that are genetically engineered ex vivo to target an HPV oncoprotein with a T cell receptor. We are presently testing this strategy in an active clinical trial with gene engineered T cells that target HPV16 E7 (NCT02858310)''

http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2018/12/05/1078-0432.CCR-18-2722