Talimogene Laherparepvec: Moving From First-In-Class to Best-In-Class

Howard L Kaufman; Sophia Z Shalhout; Gail Iodice

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.834841

Talimogene Laherparepvec: Moving From First-In-Class to Best-In-Class

Front Mol Biosci. 2022 Feb 22:9:834841. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.834841. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Howard L Kaufman^{1

2}, Sophia Z Shalhout³, Gail Iodice²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Gastrointestinal and Oncologic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.
² Ankyra Therapeutics, Boston, MA, United States.
³ Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, United States.

Abstract

Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) is a modified oncolytic herpes Simplex virus, type 1 (HSV-1) encoding granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). T-VEC is adapted for selective replication in melanoma cells and GM-CSF was expressed to augment host anti-tumor immunity. T-VEC is indicated for the local treatment of melanoma recurrent after primary surgery and is the first-in-class oncolytic virus to achieve approval by the FDA in 2015. This review will describe the progress made in advancing T-VEC to the most appropriate melanoma patients, expansion to patients with non-melanoma cancers and clinical trial results of T-VEC combination studies. Further, strategies to identify predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response to T-VEC will be discussed. Finally, a brief outline of high-priority future directions for investigation of T-VEC and other promising oncolytic viruses will set the stage for a best-in-class oncolytic virus to bring the maximum benefit of this emerging class of anti-cancer agents to patients with cancer.

Keywords: biomarker; cancer; immunotherapy; oncolytic virus (OV); treatment.

Publication types

Review