Ovarian cancer treatments need advancements with promising potential therapies, and clinical trials with immunological treatments are bringing hope.
Ovarian cancer is one of the most serious of women’s cancers as most patients aren’t diagnosed until the disease has reached an advanced stage. Each year, roughly 3,000 Canadians are diagnosed with this life-threatening disease. Innovations in ovarian cancer treatment are desperately needed, and research on immunological treatments is showing great promise. One such hope is OncoQuest’s oregovomab, currently in a phase III clinical trial.
OncoQuest is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of tumour-specific products for the immunological treatment of cancer. Its lead asset, oregovomab, is an experimental murine monoclonal antibody that binds to an antigen called CA-125 in the body and on cancer tumour cells. This approach is expected to treat multiple types of cancer, including ovarian.
Promising results lead to phase III trial
OncoQuest has completed a phase II randomized study assessing first-line chemotherapy (carboplatin-paclitaxel) versus simultaneous chemoimmunotherapy (carboplatin-paclitaxel-oregovomab) in patients with stage III/IV epithelial ovarian, adnexal,
or peritoneal carcinoma following optimal debulking surgery.
Potential substantial benefit from the addition of oregovomab treatment to standard-of-care, carboplatin, and paclitaxel chemotherapy in frontline treatment of the patients was supported by the magnitude of improvement evidenced by the clinical outcome endpoints in this multi-site study. Subjects treated with simultaneous chemoimmunotherapy had a clinically-significant improved progression-free survival (median 41.8 months) compared to the current standard-of-care (median 12.2 months), without clinically-significant additional side effects.
The phase III trial (FLORA-5) is now underway. It’s a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-centre study that’s intended to confirm the results of the phase II study and, if successful, to register the product with regulatory authorities globally and make it commercially accessible to physicians and patients.
