Sillajen said Friday that the Clinical Cancer Research, an international journal, has chosen its paper on the combination therapy of Pexa-Vec, the company’s cancer treatment, and immunostimulants as a cover journal for its March edition.

Pexa-Vec is a wyeth strain vaccinia virus engineered to lyse tumor cells and stimulate anti-tumor immunity directly.

The paper, titled “Combination of oncolytic vaccinia virus and immune checkpoint blockade overcomes resistance to immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma,” concludes that company has confirmed through a preclinical study that a combination treatment of an anticancer virus and immunosuppressive agent can increase therapeutic effects.

The paper also shows that triple combination of anti-cancer virus, programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitor induced complete remission of some tumors, and confirmed that the anti-cancer immune effect lasts long enough to prevent recurrence.

Professors Kim Chan and Chon Hong-jae and Lee Won-suk at CHA Bundang Hospital led the study.

The team studied kidney cancer mouse models that did not respond to the immune blockers alone.

In particular, triple use of Pexa-Vec and two immunostimulants -- PD-1 and CTLA-4 -- resulted in a stronger therapeutic effect, while completely removing the tumors on 40 percent of the mice. Such anticancer effects also lasted for a long time, while the median survival time was 2.3 times higher in the triple therapy group than in the control group.

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