11:49 AM EST - Oncolytics Biotech Inc. : Announced that the first patient has been dosed in the phase 1/2 GOBLET trial. The trial is being managed by AIO, a leading academic cooperative medical oncology group based in Germany , and is designed to investigate the use of pelareorep in combination with Roche's anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab in patients with metastatic pancreatic, metastatic colorectal and advanced anal cancers. "Fewer than half of gastrointestinal (GI) cancer patients respond to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) monotherapy, creating a pressing unmet need for techniques to enhance the efficacy of these agents," said Dirk Arnold M.D ., Ph.D., Director of Asklepios Tumorzentrum Hamburg, and primary investigator of the GOBLET trial. "We believe that pelareorep can address this need and increase the proportion of GI cancer patients responding to ICIs, as clinical studies have shown that it reverses the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironments underlying checkpoint inhibitor resistance. Dosing the first patient in GOBLET represents a crucial step towards the evaluation of this hypothesis, and we look forward to the trial's continued advancement." Oncolytics Biotech Inc.
shares T.ONC are trading down 2 cents at $2.65.
