Immunicum announces positive survival data from a clinical phase I/II-study with the therapeutic cancer vaccine INTUVAX for the treatment of metastatic renal cancer.

The clinical phase I/II-study, initiated in February 2012, includes a total of 12 patients, each treated with two intratumoral injections/vaccinations with INTUVAX, two weeks apart, after which their cancer affected kidney, as part of the standard treatment, was surgically removed.

Vaccination with INTUVAX did not have any negative impact on patients’ general condition and no serious vaccine-related adverse events have been reported.

Median overall survival after vaccination for the subgroup of 5 patients with poor prognosis (subgrouping according to generally accepted so-called Heng-criteria) is currently at 8 months and has thus already exceeded the expected median overall survival of 5 months with interferon treatment and 7.8 months with modern targeted therapies.

Three of the five patients in the poor prognosis group also have an unusual tumor type, so called extensive sarcomatoid tumor transformation, which impairs the prognosis further. Median survival in these 3 patients is currently at 6 months from the time of diagnosis compared to the expected 3 months.