Cancer trial in doubt

10:46am Friday 11th July 2008

OXFORD researchers have given their backing to trials of a new cancer vaccine, despite a setback in a US-based study of the treatment.

The Oxford Clinical Trials Office (Octo) said it remained committed to its planned trial of TroVax on patients with bowel cancer.

Last week, BioMedica's shares plummeted after a monitoring board recommended that patients with advanced kidney cancer should receive no more TroVax.

Some 733 kidney patients had received an average of eight injections. Up to 13 Trovax immunisations had been planned over 73 weeks.

Professor David Kerr, and Dr Rachel Midgley, of Octo, said they remained committed to the bowel cancer study, which is funded by the UK Medical Research Council and the Department of Health.

Octo, part of the Oxford University's clinical pharmacology department, plans to recruit 3,000 volunteers to receive injections of TroVax, being developed Oxford BioMedica and Sanofi-aventis.

However, Oxford BioMedica and Sanofi-aventis said they were reviewing the development plan for TroVax, including the proposed Octo study.

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