Dive Brief:
- Advaxis is submitting an INDA to the FDA for phase I/II study of ADVX-HPV and MedImmune's MED14736 (both immunotherapy cancer drugs) to study the monotherapy effect of ADVX-HPV and the combined effect of both drugs on HPV-associated head/neck/cervical cancers.
- ADVX is an Lm-LLO-based immunotherapy and MED14736 is a checkpoint inhibitor.
- Although the rate of head and neck cancers not related to human papillomavirus (HPV) is declining, the rate of HPV-related head and neck cancers has skyrocketed. There are now approximately 12,000 new cases in the U.S. each year, and 400,000 worldwide.
Dive Insight:
Cancer immunotherapy is taking on one target after another, and Advaxis is determined to take on another challenging target by addressing HPV-related head and neck cancers and HPV-related cervical cancer.
It matters, because although there is now a vaccine against high-risk strains of HPV, only one third of young women have been vaccinated and approximately 20 million women are already infected.