Coley gets $3M milestone from GSK

Coley Pharmaceutical of the USA says that it has received a $3.0 million milestone payment from UK drug giant GlaxoSmithKline associated with the initiation of GSK's Phase III clinical trial in non-small cell lung cancer of an immunotherapeutic cancer vaccine containing Coley's VaxImmune vaccine adjuvant.

In June, GSK announced the launch of the largest Phase III clinical trial in lung cancer to evaluate the MAGE-A3 Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutic (MAGE-A3 ASCI) in patients with early-stage, completely resected NSCLC. VaxImmune is one of the components of MAGE-A3 ASCI, intended to increase an anti-tumor immune response. The randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled Phase III study, known as the MAGRIT trial, will target enrollment of about 2,270 patients with stage IB, II or IIIA resectable NSCLC. The primary endpoint of the trial is disease-free survival. The development milestone was triggered by the initiation of this Phase III trial.

VaxImmune is Coley's proprietary TLR9 agonist designed to induce both an enhanced antibody response and a potent killer T cell immune response when used in conjunction with vaccines in order to achieve and sustain a clinical response without compromising safety. Coley has granted GSK worldwide licenses for the use of VaxImmune in its vaccines in development for certain cancers and infectious diseases.