TILT Biotherapeutics has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to receive a grant for a three-year project on treatment for ovarian cancer using the company’s TILT-123 asset.

The aims of the DOD funded project are to assess safety, signs of efficacy of TILT-123 in combination with pembrolizumab in platinum-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer patients and evaluate immune response, virus persistence and biological effects in tumors.

“We’re delighted to have been selected to receive our first U.S. grant. Working closely with the Mayo Clinic, it will support our efforts to unleash the full potential of oncolytic adenoviruses in treating ovarian cancer. We designed TILT-123 to improve the response rates in those many patients that are not responsive to current treatments. Our international clinical trials are progressing well through Phase I, and this significant grant is another key step in progressing these new therapies to reach patients in this high unmet medical need,” says TILT Biotherapeutics’ founder and CEO, Akseli Hemminki.

TILT-123

TILT-123, also known as Igrelimogene litadenorepvec, is a chimeric serotype adenovirus armed with two human cytokines that boost the patient’s systemic immune response to better enable it to find and destroy cancer cells. It treats cancer by working synergistically with immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid tumors and can be delivered intravenously or intratumorally. The company is advancing its pipeline of programs across several cancer indications as a monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

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