A vaccine combination nearly doubles one-year survival in an advanced lung cancer trial

When advanced lung cancer returns after first treatment, the standard second option — a chemotherapy drug called docetaxel — helps only modestly and is hard on patients. In the Phase 2 Combi-TED trial, run at 19 hospitals in France, Italy and Spain with 106 patients, Nantes company OSE Immunotherapeutics tested its cancer vaccine Tedopi combined with either docetaxel or the immunotherapy nivolumab. One year on, 47% of patients on the vaccine-plus-docetaxel arm and 46% on the vaccine-plus-nivolumab arm were alive, against 29% on docetaxel alone — close to a doubling — with no unexpected safety problems. Lead investigator Federico Cappuzzo of Rome's Regina Elena institute will present the full results at the ESMO congress in Madrid on October 25.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation