Targeted failure of the week. Post No 20. TroVax vaccine.

The idea to use vaccine to treat cancers has been originated 15-20 years ago (probably even earlier). So far – not so good but the desire is still exist despite the fact that the approach is not in general very successful. And here is another failure:

Oxford BioMedica plc (LSE:OXB) stopped a U.S. Phase II trial of TroVax in patients with metastatic hormone-refractory prostate cancer (HRPC) due to slower-than-expected patient recruitment. Oxford attributed the slow enrollment to changes in the prostate cancer space since the trial started in 2010, including the approval of new products and the start of other HRPC trials. Oxford enrolled only 26 of the planned 80 patients.

Preliminary data showed a trend towards increased time to disease progression in patients who received TroVax plus docetaxel compared to docetaxel alone. Oxford will present full data at the Immunotherapies & Cancer Vaccines meeting in Brussels in December.

Who will fail next time? Just wait another week!