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news.US-based Northwest Biotherapeutics has received approval from the Swiss Institute of Public Health to make DCVax-Brain commercially available for treatment of brain cancer patients in Switzerland.
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As such, DCVax-Brain is the first commercially available therapeutic vaccine for such cancers, according to Biotherapeutics, which intends to begin making the product available to patients in Q3 2007.
Dr Alton Boynton, president and CEO of Northwest Biotherapeutics, said: “We look forward to being able to bring DCVax-Brain to patients in additional countries, and to applying our DCVax technology to many other cancers, including the five for which we already have FDA clearance to begin clinical trials.”
“Finally, we are especially pleased to achieve such a major milestone substantially ahead of schedule and so soon after our flotation on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.”
In clinical trials, both newly diagnosed and recurrent brain cancer patients treated with DCVax-Brain had more than double the survival time of patients who did not receive DCVax-Brain (to over 33 months and continuing – median not yet reached – for newly diagnosed patients). The company claims that in addition, unlike chemotherapy, DCVax-Brain does not cause any debilitating side effects.
Under the Swiss authorization for use, the company is permitted to manufacture DCVax-Brain in the US and make it available for the treatment of patients with brain cancer at select centers in Switzerland. The authorization was granted in response to the company’s application in mid-February, 2007.