Targeted failure of the week. Post No 101. MAGE-A3

GlaxoSmithKline’s cancer vaccine has failed to meet its first co-primary endpoint in a Phase III melanoma clinical trial.

The drugs giant notes that an independent analysis of the DERMA study of its MAGE-A3 cancer immunotherapeutic showed that it did not significantly extend disease-free survival in stage IIIB/C melanoma patients with macroscopic nodal disease, whose tumours expressed the MAGE-A3 gene when compared to placebo. The aforementioned gene is expressed in about 65% of stage III melanomas