Genexine will release the interim results of its clinical trials on the combined therapy of GX-188E, a cervical cancer DNA vaccine, and MSD’s immune-oncology Keytruda, at the American Association for Cancer Research on Tuesday.

The Korean biotechnology company has been conducting phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of the combination treatment for cervical cancer since May 2019.

AACR allows 46 studies among thousands of reported researches and gives time for presentation in its plenary session. Each speaker gets about 10 minutes for presentation and questions and answers. The annual AACR meeting will be held online due to the new coronavirus pandemic.

“AACR’s selection of Genexine as an oral presenter indicates that the study results of the ongoing clinical trials of anticancer drugs might be excellent,” according to a report released by Hanyang Securities last Friday.

Genexine will introduce its study result for 12 to 15 minutes and have additional time to answer questions. The presentation will focus on showing how much improvement was made in the combined therapy compared to the single injection of Keytruda.

Previously, the sole administration of Keytruda in the clinical trials of cervical cancer was conducted on 98 patients. The objective response rate (ORR) was 14.3 percent for 77 patients with programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) of 1 percent or more, and PD-L1 negative patients did not respond at all.

“We have to confirm how high GX-188E can raise the ORR of Keytruda and determine whether it is effective in PD-L1 negative patients,” said Oh Byeong-yong, a Hanyang Securities analyst. “Enhancing the ORR of Keytruda is always a highly anticipated issue.”

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