Shares of Asterias Biotherapeutics Inc (NYSEAMERICAN:AST) soared Wednesday after the biotech said a safety review committee has recommended continuation of a study for its cancer immunotherapy product, AST-VAC2.
Asterias Biotherapeutics stock jumped nearly 16% to US$1.79 on the news.
“Based on its review of all available study data after five doses in the first patient, the Safety Review Committee`s recommendation to continue the trial without modification reaffirms our belief that AST-VAC2 is safe and well-tolerated,” said Edward Wirth, chief medical officer at Asterias Biotherapeutics. “The committee concluded that the trial can proceed as planned per protocol an important step as we continue the clinical development of AST-VAC2.”
The Safety Review Committee reviewed all the data generated for the first patient in Arm A (advanced disease), who by the time of the review had received five weekly doses of 10 million AST-VAC2 cells. As specified in the AST-VAC2 clinical trial protocol, the committee meets on a dosing-driven basis to review safety and tolerability data from the ongoing trial.
AST-VAC2 is an innovative immunotherapy product that contains mature dendritic cells derived from pluripotent stem cells. The AST-VAC2 dendritic cells instruct the immune system to generate responses against telomerase and, through this mechanism, target tumor cells.
The initial clinical trial is being funded by Cancer Research UK and will examine the safety and tolerability of AST-VAC2 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as the study`s primary endpoints.
NSCLC is one of two major types of lung cancer that can affect smokers and nonsmokers.
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