Phase Ib open-label study to evaluate safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and efficacy of multiple subcutaneous injections of PolyPEPI1018 vaccine as an add-on immunotherapy to TAS-102 in participants with late-stage microsatellite-stable metastatic colorectal cancer (MSS mCRC; OBERTO-201).
Authors: Hubbard Joleen M. , Zemla Tyler J. , Graham Rondell P. , Jin Zhaohui , Zhu Mojun , Mitchell Jessica L. , Novo Elise , Vegh Eva , Lorincz Orsolya , Kremlitzka Mariann , Somogyi Eszter , Molnar Levente , Tóth József , Toke Eniko Rita 
Published: January 2023

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Background: PolyPEPI1018 is an off-the-shelf, multi-peptide vaccine containing 12 immunogenic epitopes derived from 7 cancer testis antigens (CTAs) frequently expressed in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). PolyPEPI1018 successfully induced anticancer immunity and triggered recruitment and infiltration of cytotoxic T cells into the tumor of MSS mCRC subjects demonstrating also early evidence of clinical activity, in first-line mCRC. Here we report the initial results of the phase Ib study of PolyPEPI1018 vaccine plus trifluridine/tipiracil (TAS-102) in late-stage mCRC patients. Methods: Patients with MSS mCRC who have progressed on ≤2 lines of prior chemotherapy regimen for mCRC received PolyPEPI1018 subcutaneously on days 1 and 15 and TAS-102 orally twice daily on days 1-5 and 8-12 of a 28-day cycle. Treatment continued for up to 7 cycles until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Immunomonitoring was performed at both blood and tumor levels prior to- and on study treatment. The primary endpoint of the study was safety and tolerability. Data on objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and correlation studies will be also presented. Results: 15 patients (67% male) started treatment. At baseline, median age was 55 years (range 31–71), 73% had liver metastases and the primary tumor site was colon-sigmoid in 40% and rectum in 33%. The combination was well-tolerated; most common side effect related to PolyPEPI1018 was Grade (Gr) 1-2 local skin reactions in 93% of patients. Gr 3 events. There were no Gr 4 or 5 events. The ORR was 0% and the DCR was 50%. The mPFS was 2.5 months (95%CI 2.1-NR). At the data cut-off (September 7, 2022), the mOS has not been reached; median follow-up was 4.0 months (95% CI 2.2-4.4). Post-treatment, vaccine-specific T cell responses were detected ex vivo in the PBMC of 4/5 subjects tested. In addition, one subject who had no detectable T cell response at peripheral level, responded at the tumor level with more than 300% increase of both CD3+ and CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes compared to baseline. Patients with increased PFS (≥ 16 weeks) had robust vaccine-specific T cell responses. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first phase Ib study investigating combination of a cancer vaccine with TAS-102 chemotherapy in advanced MSS mCRC. Our results show that PolyPEPI1018 plus TAS-102 was well-tolerated with few grade 3 AEs beyond what is expected with TAS-102 monotherapy. PolyPEPI1018 induced immunological responses at both peripheral and tumor level, albeit no objective tumor responses could be detected. The study is on-going for the collection of overall survival data. Clinical trial information: NCT05130060 .