Replies to post #208925 on Biotech Values

[Titan V]

More than a guess :) Please refer to the 2nd LA Times link on this page:
http://oncosec.com/patients-perspective/

My cancer has backed away too. Under the care of oncologist Dr. Alain Algazi, a skin cancer specialist and research scientist at UC San Francisco, my treatment consists of two parts. The first involves a clinical trial with an experimental gene therapy regimen. Since the fall I have been getting injections of the genetic material pIL-12 with electroporation (yes, that’s electric shock) on a six-week cycle. (Our next-door neighbor, a genetic scientist, calls me a human GMO.) The gene therapy regimen is designed to make my tumors more likely to respond to the second part of my treatment: Despite it’s not being approved by the Food and Drug Administration for my type of cancer, I have received infusions since January of Keytruda (pembrolizumab), the immunotherapy drug taken by Carter.

Now that Keytruda has been approved in head and neck cancer, I wouldn't be surprised to see a bigger combination trial in the indication. Btw, the upcoming ASCO-SITC immune monitoring data readout is for melanoma combo using Keytruda. At SITC 2016 in November of last year, a 40% response rate was reported on a sample of 15 patients from this p2b melanoma combo trial, most of whom were biomarker-predicted non-responders to Keytruda. The upcoming ASCO-SITC readout will provide immune monitoring data from these patients.