Glioma vacc gives 25% survival at five years

US biotechnology firm Northwest Biotherapeutics has reported further, successful, long-term follow-up data from its Phase I and Phase I/II  trials with DCVax-Brain in patients with glioblastoma multiforme.

In the new data: 68% of patients treated with DCVax-Brain lived more  than two years; 63% survived over two and a half years; after three  years, 53% were still alive; 35% were living after more than four years;  and 25% lived over five years. Subjects on standard-of-care therapy  without DCVax-Brain had a median survival of 14.6 months, and less than  5% of these patients are typically alive at five years.

DCVax-Brain is a personalized immunotherapy designed to stimulate a  patient's own immune system to fight cancer. The drug is made up of the  subject's own dendritic cells, that have been activated and "educated"  to mobilize the full immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells  bearing the biomarkers of the patient's own tumor. DCVax-Brain is now in  a large Phase II clinical trial which is currently enrolling.