Northwest Biotherapeutics, a biotech company focused on immunotherapy products to treat cancer without toxicities associated with chemotherapies, today announced it has begun enrollment of new patients in the company’s ongoing 240-patient randomized, double blind, placebo controlled clinical trial of DCVax® immune therapy for Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most fatal type of brain cancer.
So far the company has enrolled 33 patients for the cancer trial and its information arm; patients are already receiving treatment regimen and follow-up.
Four recruiting centers are carrying out the company’s enrollment initiatives: the University of Rochester in New York; the University Hospitals of Cleveland in Ohio; the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan; and the Virginia Piper Cancer Center of the University of Minnesota.
In addition, another eight medical centers across the nation are making reparations to conduct additional enrollment in the ongoing GBM trial, four of which are expected to begin or resume recruiting and screening during this quarter.
“We are pleased to have medical centers spread across the U.S. which are ramping up additional enrollment into our ongoing GBM brain cancer clinical trial,” Dr. Alton Boynton, CEO of NWBT stated in the press release. “This will help patients participate in the trial without having to travel too far, and it will also help us accelerate the overall enrollment required for completion of the trial.”
NWBT reported positive results in prior clinical trials of DCVax for patients with GBM brain cancer, demonstrating that the patients who received DCVax showed a median survival of three years, compared with median survival of only 14.6 months with standard of care today (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). In addition, patients treated with DCVax did not have their tumor recur for approximately two years, on average, as compared with tumor recurrence in seven months with standard of care today. The company also reported that patients treated with DCVax did not experience any toxic side effects, such as those found with chemotherapy treatment.
For more information visit www.nwbio.com
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