The first patient has been recruited in a mesothelioma cancer study that aims at treating malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare cancer that affects the lining of the lungs, known as the pleura.

There is currently no cure for this aggressive cancer, but the current mesothelioma cancer study is looking to find ways to help patients with this serious disease.

Mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos. Asbestos is a naturally occurring material that has been used for many years in building and construction materials due to its fire retardant and insulation properties.

Although its use has been lessened, the material is not currently banned in the United States. The cancer itself is slow-growing, and may take decades to develop.

Men and women who were exposed to asbestos as children, teenagers and young adults during the prime of its use last century are just now starting to show the effects of the asbestos exposure as they become diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer due to asbestos exposure.

Currently, the only treatment used for MPM is chemotherapy using cisplatin or pemetrexed under the standard of care. However, these treatments typically only prolong a patient’s life for about 12 months.

A new treatment is being developed by Targovax, a company based in Scandinavia that is holding clinical trials in a mesothelioma cancer study for a treatment referred to as ONCOS-102 that will be used in combination with cisplatin and permetrexed.

“New therapies are needed to provide better care for patients with mesothelioma, a highly malignant cancer with poor prognosis” Dr Magnus Jaderberg, Chief Medical Officer of Targovax said in a recent press release.

“This clinical trial will provide data to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ONCOS-102 in first and second line mesothelioma patients, and we hope that our immunotherapy can provide additional benefit to chemotherapy, the existing standard of care.”

“In addition, treating the first patient in the first oncolytic virus trial of the merged company is of course an exciting moment for Targovax and all its stakeholders,” Dr Jaderberg stated.

The mesothelioma cancer study trial is designed to evaluate the efficacy of ONCOS-102, an human adenovirus that has been engineered to specifically induce anti-tumor responses. Thirty patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma will take part in the mesothelioma cancer study trial.

The results from an ONCOS-102 Phase I trial indicated that the immunotherapy drug induced tumor specific activation that affected patients both at the systemic level as well as the lesional level.

Currently, ONCOS-102 is used in Europe and the United States under its “orphan drug status” to treat soft tissue sarcoma as well as ovarian cancer.

The ONCOS-102 immunotherapy drug will be administered along with the chemotherapy drugs pemetrexed and cisplatin.

Several sites across Europe are conducting the mesothelioma cancer study trial. The goal for the trial is to determine the safety of ONCOS-102 use, the patient’s clinical response to the drug, and seeks to understand the method of immune activation both at the level of the lesion and systemically in the peripheral blood.

Targovax is also planning three additional clinical trials to take place later this year that will involve ONCOS-102 and its RAS gene peptide vaccine TGO2.