Mendus AB announced the publication of updated clinical data from the ongoing ALISON Phase 1 trial with the company's lead program vididencel at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer's (SITC) 38th Annual Meeting, the conference for cancer immunotherapy. The data demonstrate the boosting of broad immune responses in the majority of patients and a continued strong safety profile of vididencel. Treatment of advanced ovarian cancer after surgery and chemotherapy remains challenging, due to high recurrence rates.

The ALISON trial evaluates the use of vididencel as a maintenance treatment in ovarian cancer, aimed to prevent disease recurrence after first line treatment. The data presented at SITC demonstrate that vididencel induces immune responses against tumor-associated antigens which are frequently upregulated in ovarian cancer. At the cut-off date for the SITC conference, 16 out of 17 patients had been enrolled in the ALISON study.

T cell responses against a broad range of tumor-associated antigens present in vididencel were seen in 6 out of 8 evaluable patients. Immune responses against tumor- associated antigens, which are not present in vididencel was also observed following vididencel administration, suggesting broadening of the immune response due to so-called antigen spreading caused by tumor cell lysis. In addition to the observed T cell responses, B cell responses were improved, as demonstrated by the increased presence of memory B-cells and precursors of antibody-secreting B-cells in the majority of patients treated with vididencel.