Abstract CT072: First in human (FIH) dose escalation studies of intravenous administration of VSV-IFNβ-NIS (Voyager-V1™) in Stage IV or recurrent endometrial cancer
Authors: Bakkum-Gamez Jamie , Block Matthew S. , Packiriswamy Nanda , Brunton Bethany A. , Deepak Upreti , Mitchell Jonathan M. , Suksanpaisan Lukkana , Atherton Pamela , Dueck Amylou , Russell Stephen J. , Lacy Martha Q. , Peng Kah-Whye 
Published: August 2018

Introduction. VSV-IFNβ-NIS is an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV; Rhabdovirus family) with rapid replication kinetics and potent antitumor activity. VSV-IFNβ-NIS encodes the human interferon beta (IFNβ) gene as a STING agonist and the human sodium iodide symporter (NIS) as a reporter gene for tracking the pharmacokinetics (PK) of virus replication in infected tumors. VSV replicates selectively in cancer cells and has promising preclinical antitumor activity across a broad spectrum of cancer types. We report here the safety and correlative data from an FIH trial of intravenous (IV) administration of VSV-IFNβ-NIS in patients with stage IV or recurrent endometrial cancer (EC).

Methods. There are two ongoing IV FIH trials using VSV-IFN-NIS, in patients with EC (NCT03120624) and one in patients with hematological malignancies (NCT03017820). In EC, it is a classical 3+3 phase I trial, starting at 5x109 TCID50 through 5x1011 TCID50, given as a single IV dose. The primary objective is safety and tolerability; secondary objectives include monitoring the PK of viral replication through SPECT/CT imaging with NIS gene, viremia, virus shedding, preliminary efficacy, changes in the immune profile of peripheral blood leukocytes, and immunohistochemistry for immune cell infiltrates in tumors.

Results. Nine patients have received IV VSV-IFNβ-NIS to date; three with EC and six with hematologic malignancies. The highest dose administered to date is 1.7x1010 TCID50 and dose escalation is ongoing. No DLTs have been observed. Patients experienced the expected infusion related AEs including rigors, chills, nausea, fever, hypotension, and hot flashes. Multiple cytokines increased at 4h post infusion of virus, but most returned to baseline levels by 24h. Viremia was detectable in all patients at the end of infusion, and to varying levels at 30 mins, 1, 2, 4, 24, 48h or 72 hours post virus infusion. No persistent viremia was observed. No infectious virus was recovered in buccal swabs or urine and neutralizing anti-VSV antibodies were present by day 29. Extensive immune phenotyping for T cells, NK, MSDC, myeloid cells performed on peripheral blood cells collected at baseline and at day 3, 8, 15 and 29 post virus infusion showed a trend towards increased PD-1 expression on CD8+ cells. Early IHC data suggests an increase in CD3+ and CD8+ cells in tumor biopsies at day 29 and 3 months in patients with EC treated at the first dose level. Elispot assays for shared EC antigens are pending.

Conclusions. IV administration of VSV-IFNβ-NIS up to doses of 1.7x1010 is safe and well tolerated. There is evidence of T cell activation with increased PD-1 expression in CD8+ T cells in the peripheral blood and increased in CD3+ and CD8+ cells in tumor biopsies. Updated results for the EC study will be reported.

Citation Format: Jamie Bakkum-Gamez, Matthew S. Block, Nanda Packiriswamy, Bethany A. Brunton, Upreti Deepak, Jonathan M. Mitchell, Lukkana Suksanpaisan, Pamela Atherton, Amylou Dueck, Stephen J. Russell, Martha Q. Lacy, Kah-Whye Peng. First in human (FIH) dose escalation studies of intravenous administration of VSV-IFNβ-NIS (Voyager-V1™) in Stage IV or recurrent endometrial cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr CT072.