– Productive year for Targovax

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Our portfolio company Targovax ASA presents full year and fourth quarter results for 2017 today. CEO Øystein Soug says they had a productive year where they made progress with product candidates and also raised significant funding.

 

Targovax is a clinical stage company focused on developing immuno-oncology therapies to target solid tumors. 

 

Øystein Soug, CEO: “2017 was a very productive year for Targovax, in which we made significant progress with product candidates from both of our two platforms, and completed a significant fund-raising to deliver on our ongoing clinical program. In particular, the initial clinical data from the TG01 trial in pancreatic cancer were encouraging and we look forward to the complete trial results in this challenging disease in the first half of 2018. Overall, the prospects are great for 2018, where we anticipate delivery of several clinical data readouts from ongoing trials, which we expect to further demonstrate the potential of our two immuno-oncology platforms.”

 

HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE FOURTH QUARTER 2017

Research & Development

  • In October, Targovax reported encouraging one-year survival rate, immune activation, and safety data for the second cohort in the TG01 phase I/II trial in resected pancreatic cancer, in line with data from the first cohort published earlier in the year
  • In October, Targovax was granted a product composition-of-matter patent in the US for TG02
  • In December, Targovax announced that TG02 had passed the initial safety review in the first-in-man clinical trial in colorectal cancer, and also reported immune activation data in the first treated patients
  • In December, Targovax announced that the two first combination trials with ONCOS-102, in melanoma and mesothelioma, both had passed their initial, planned, safety reviews

  

Corporate

  • In November, Patrick Vink was appointed as the new chairman of the Board of Directors
  • In December, Targovax was included in the OSEBX index at the Oslo Stock Exchange

 

POST-PERIOD HIGHLIGHTS

  • In January, Targovax announced that ONCOS-102 generated immune activation in checkpoint inhibitor (CPI) refractory melanoma in four out of the first four patients treated
  • Also in January, Dr. Michael Bogenstätter was appointed Chief Business Officer of Targovax
  • In February, Targovax announced that the safety lead-in part of its ONCOS-102 trial in unresectable, malignant, pleural mesothelioma was completed without any safety concerns, and that ONCOS-102 generates immune activation in treated patients

 

Reporting material

The quarterly report and presentation are also available at the website  www.targovax.com.

 

 

About Targovax: Arming the patient’s immune system to fight cancer

Targovax (OSE:TRVX) is a clinical stage company focused on developing and commercializing novel immuno-oncology therapies to target, primarily, treatment-resistant solid tumors. Immuno-oncology is currently one of the fastest growing therapeutic fields in medicine.

The Company’s development pipeline is based on two novel proprietary platforms:

The first platform, ONCOS, uses oncolytic viruses as potential multi-target, neo-antigen therapeutic cancer vaccines. ONCOS uses an adenovirus that has been engineered to be an immune activator that selectively targets cancer cells. In phase I trials it has demonstrated immune activation at lesional level which was associated with clinical benefit. In an ongoing phase I trial in advanced melanoma we expect important proof of concept data for checkpoint inhibitor refractory patients.

The second platform, TG, are neo-antigen cancer vaccines designed to specifically treat tumors that express mutated forms of RAS. Mutations to the RAS protein are common in many cancers and are known to drive aggressive disease progression and treatment resistance. There is a high unmet medical need for therapies that are effective against tumors that express these mutations. The TG platform’s therapeutic potential stems from its ability to enable the patient’s immune system to identify and destroy tumors bearing any RAS mutations. In early 2017, key proof of concept data for the TG platform from a clinical trial of TG01 in resected pancreatic cancer patients showed encouraging overall survival and will give guidance for the future clinical development of this platform.

Targovax’s development pipeline has three novel therapeutic candidates in clinical development covering six indications.

Both platforms are protected by an extensive portfolio of IP and know-how and have the potential to yield multiple product candidates in a cost-effective manner. Additionally, Targovax has other products in early stages of development.

Source: Targovax.