Antigenics is reporting that a small study of Oncophage for late-stage brain cancer demonstrates that it helps improve survival of patients. Researchers said that the trial of 12 patients with glioblastoma shows that the therapy helped boost their immune system. The lead investigator said that patients are living on average four months longer than the historical norm and added that the immune response was unprecedented. It's also a rare note of positive news for Antigenics, which has taken a beating after reporting that Oncophage failed late-stage trials for skin and kidney cancer. Dr. Andrew Parsa, assistant professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, though, told reporters that he felt that the data on kidney cancer obscured Oncophage's beneficial impact on patients whose kidney cancer has been fully removed by surgery. More data on that subset is expected in the middle of this year.
- see the release on the data
- here's the Scientific American report on the trial data
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