Oegstgeest, December 7, 2021 – ISA’s very own Chief Scientific Officer, Cornelis “Kees” Melief, M.D., Ph.D., will be presenting key learnings in cancer vaccine development in an educational session at the ESMO Immune-Oncology Congress 2021, taking place on 8th – 11th December 2021 in Geneva, Switzerland and online.

Key learnings include:

• Direct correlation between strength of cancer vaccine-induced immune response and clinical response
• Combination therapy of cancer vaccine with standard of care and/or checkpoint blockers necessary for improved outcomes in treatment of late stage cancers

Session: New indications in head and neck (H&N) cancer (incl anaplastic thyroid) (ID 8)
Presentation title: HPV vaccination for H&N cancer therapy (ID 39)
Authors: Cornelis J. Melief
Date & Time: Thursday, 9th December, 15:30pm – 15:50pm CET
Locations: Room C

Kees Melief comments: “Our findings consistently highlight the direct correlation between the strength of the vaccine-induced immune response and the subsequent clinical response in patients with metastatic (HPV16+) cancers, including oropharyngeal cancer (OPC). Moreover, we argue that to overcome the hostile tumour microenvironment in late-stage cancer, combination of SLP-based therapies with platin-based standard of care and/or checkpoint blocking (anti-PD1 in particular) is necessary for improved treatment outcomes.”

Gerben Moolhuizen, Chief Executive Officer, said: “ We recently announced that we received FDA Fast Track designation for our lead product ISA101b, for treatment of recurrent and metastatic HPV16+ OPC. We are proud to be presenting our compelling findings in cancer vaccine combination therapy development at this influential medical conference, following the start of a next phase 2 clinical trial investigating the combination of ISA101b and Libtayo® in advanced HPV16 positive OPC.”

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