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Led OPTiM, the trial that made talimogene laherparepvec the first approved oncolytic virus therapy.
Howard Kaufman was a lead investigator and senior author of OPTiM, the phase 3 trial showing the herpes-based oncolytic virus talimogene laherparepvec improves durable response rates in advanced melanoma, leading to the first approval of an oncolytic virus in 2015. He led the JAVELIN Merkel 200 trial of avelumab and was president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.
| Title | Journal | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Talimogene laherparepvec improves durable response rate in patients with advanced melanoma (OPTiM) | JCO | 2015 |
| Oncolytic viruses: a new class of immunotherapy drugs | Nature Reviews Drug Discovery | 2015 |
The honest summary of the field after its first approval: a tolerable class of agents, a large number of candidates, and one product in routine use in one disease. The distinction the review keeps making, between viruses that replicate in the tumour and viruses used only to deliver a gene, is the distinction most coverage of this field drops.
This is the approval that created the class, and it is also the clearest example of how the class is oversold. A durable response rate eight times the comparator is a real local effect on injectable lesions. The survival comparison did not reach significance, and the comparator was granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor rather than a checkpoint inhibitor, which by 2015 was already the standard. A reader told that a virus improves survival in melanoma is being told something this trial did not show.
Shares Merkel cell carcinoma, Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares Oncolytic viruses and the tags immunotherapy, oncolytic-virus.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares Oncolytic viruses and the tags immunotherapy, oncolytic-virus.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.
Shares Melanoma and the tags immunotherapy, melanoma.