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Oxford Bio’s failed cancer vaccine may help some

BERLIN - A therapeutic cancer vaccine from Oxford BioMedica that failed in a clinical study may still help a subset of patients, researchers said on Tuesday.

The failure prompted French drugmaker Sanofi Aventis to hand back rights to Trovax in April. The latest data suggested it may yet have a future and could kindle renewed interest from potential pharmaceutical partners.

Although TroVax did not show a significant survival advantage in the overall population studied, patients with a good prognostic profile receiving interleukin-2 therapy did live longer, results at the ECCO-ESMO cancer conference showed.

Robert Hawkins of the Christie Hospital in Manchester said a specific immune response, known as anti-5T4, induced by TroVax was associated with enhanced survival.

“Although I am disappointed that the trial did not meet its primary endpoint, I believe that TroVax is still of potential benefit to patients with cancer and I hope further studies will be initiated with more refined target populations,” he said.

The company’s chief executive, John Dawson, said he aimed to hold talks with prospective partners and the oncology community in order to start fresh trials of TroVax as soon as possible.