An engineered virus placed straight into the bladder cleared the cancer in 9 of 10 patients in a small early trial

When bladder cancer stops responding to BCG — the standard treatment, a weakened bacterium washed into the bladder to stir up the immune system — the next step is often removal of the bladder itself. ImmVira, a company based in Suzhou, China, is testing a gentler idea: a modified cold-sore virus, placed straight into the bladder, engineered to attack tumour cells while rousing the immune system. In updated early results presented at the ESMO cancer conference in Madrid, the higher dose cleared all detectable cancer in 9 of 10 patients with the hardest-to-treat pattern of the disease at some point during treatment, and most of those responses were still holding at nine months. In two other small groups, about three in four patients (75.1%) whose cancer kept returning and about seven in ten (69.8%) treated earlier were still cancer-free a year later. The groups were small — 14 to 19 patients each — so larger trials must confirm the promise. But no severe treatment-related side effects were reported, and for patients who respond, the prize is keeping their bladder.

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