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A review of where cancer-killing viruses stand in the clinic, written around the accumulated experience of the one product that is widely approved.
Shalhout, Miller, Emerick and Kaufman review oncolytic viruses as a class: selective replication in tumour cells, delivery of several transgene payloads, induction of immunogenic cell death, promotion of antitumour immunity, and a safety profile that largely does not overlap with other cancer therapeutics. They note that four oncolytic viruses and one non-oncolytic virus had been approved for cancer globally, while talimogene laherparepvec remained the only widely approved therapy, indicated for recurrent melanoma after initial surgery and first approved in 2015.
The review is written as practical guidance on using these agents rather than as advocacy, and sets out the preclinical, clinical and regulatory obstacles that have limited their development. Howard Kaufman, one of the authors, was a lead investigator of the trial that produced the first approval.
The honest summary of the field after its first approval: a tolerable class of agents, a large number of candidates, and one product in routine use in one disease. The distinction the review keeps making, between viruses that replicate in the tumour and viruses used only to deliver a gene, is the distinction most coverage of this field drops.
Shares Howard L. Kaufman, Talimogene laherparepvec, Oncolytic viruses.
Shares Howard L. Kaufman, Oncolytic viruses.