Transgene and NEC Present First Clinical Benefits of Neoantigen Cancer Vaccine, TG4050, in Head & Neck Cancer at AACR 2024

Extensive Phase I immunology data confirm strong immunogenicity of TG4050 in the adjuvant treatment of head and neck cancers.

All treated patients remain disease-free after a median follow-up of 18.6 months.

Phase II part of the trial to start enrolling patients in coming weeks.

Strasbourg, France & Tokyo, Japan, April 9, 2024, 5:45 p.m. CET – Transgene (Euronext Paris: TNG), a biotech company that designs and develops virus-based immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, and NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701), a leader in IT, network and AI technologies, announced that new data will be presented on TG4050, an individualized neoantigen cancer vaccine, at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. These data are highlighted in the AACR press conference being held today and in a poster presentation which will take place tomorrow, April 10, at 9:00 a.m. PDT.

TG4050 is based on Transgene’s myvac platform and powered by NEC’s cutting-edge AI capabilities designed to optimize antigen selection.

Key findings of the poster include:

• All 16 patients who received TG4050 are disease free after a median 18.6-month follow-up. Out of the 16 patients in the control observation arm, 3 patients have relapsed. For this head and neck cancer patient population and with current standard of care, approximately 40% of patients are expected to relapse within 24 months following surgery and adjuvant therapy (chemoradiotherapy). Also, the tumor immune contexture, expression of immune factors, mutational burden, and tumor infiltrates are associated with challenging prognoses.
• Specific cellular immune responses were detected in the 16/17 patients who received TG4050 (16 patients in the treatment arm and one patient from the observation arm treated after relapse) using stringent testing criteria. Immunogenicity or the capacity of treatment to induce immune responses are key to prevent relapses.
• TG4050 induced persistent immune responses against multiple targets in several patients. T cell responses were maintained beyond 211 days (7 months) after the initiation of the treatment. The duration of the immune response is also a key factor to fight disease over time.  

Alessandro Riva, Chairman and CEO of Transgene, commented: “We are honored by AACR’s interest in the Phase I data generated from our individualized cancer vaccine TG4050. It is exciting to note that all patients who received TG4050 are in remission still and remain disease-free after a median follow-up of 18.6 months, which compares favorably to the observational arm which saw 3 out of 16 patients relapse during the same period.”