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A new study presented today reports encouraging long-term survival outcomes from an experimental viral immunotherapy, CAN-2409, in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who previously failed to respond adequately to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI).
The study was presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2025 World Conference on Lung Cancer.
The phase 2a clinical trial investigated the efficacy of two intratumoural injections of CAN-2409 combined with an oral prodrug (valacyclovir) in patients with unresectable stage III/IV NSCLC, a clinical trial sponsored by Candel Therapeutics.
Patients were separated into two cohorts based on their disease status at enrollment: those with stable disease despite ICI and those with progressive disease despite ICI.
Among the 76 patients enrolled, 46 were considered eligible for analysis (per protocol population).
At a median follow-up of 32.4 months, median overall survival (OS) for the eligible population was 24.5 months, with 37% of patients still alive more than two years post-treatment.
In patients with progressive disease at baseline, median OS was 21.5 months.
“Notably, patients with non-squamous histology demonstrated longer OS than those with squamous histology (25.4 vs. 13.3 months), linked to a significant increase in cytotoxic effector T cells and other favourable immunological changes following treatment,” said Dr. Charu Aggarwal of the Abramson Cancer Centre at the University of Pennsylvania.
Systemic immune activation was observed, with abscopal responses seen in 69% of patients with multiple lesions, indicating a robust systemic anti-tumour effect triggered by local treatment.
“This extended follow-up confirms the durable survival benefit of CAN-2409 for patients who otherwise have limited treatment options after failing ICI therapy,” said Dr. Aggarwal.
“These results strongly support advancing CAN-2409 into a larger, randomised controlled trial, particularly in patients with non-squamous histology.”
Dr. Aggarwal noted that CAN-2409 continued to show a favourable safety and tolerability profile throughout the extended follow-up period.
Source: International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer
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