Intratumoral delivery of plasmid IL-12 with electroporation changes tumor’s immune environment

Intratumoral delivery of plasmid IL-12 with electroporation changes tumor’s immune environment

March 21, 2017 Off By Dino Mustafić

In vivo electroporation of intratumoral plasmid IL-12 (ImmunoPulse IL-12) enhances immunogenicity in poorly immunogenic mouse cancer models, said OncoSec Medical in a poster presentation in Canada.

OncoSec Medical, a company developing DNA-based intratumoral cancer immunotherapies, presented a poster titled “Intratumoral Electroporation-mediated IL-12 Gene Therapy Can Enhance Tumor Immunogenicity” at the Keystone Symposia Conference, “Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy: Taking a Place in Mainstream Oncology,” in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The poster included preclinical data demonstrating in vivo electroporation of intratumoral plasmid IL-12.

“These data support the hypothesis that intratumoral delivery of plasmid IL-12 with electroporation can alter the tumor’s immune environment in such a way that a ‘cold’ non-immunogenic tumor is converted to a ‘hot’ immunogenic tumor, thus further supporting recent clinical data that ImmunoPulse IL-12 is a rational combination therapy with anti-PD-1 checkpoint therapies,” said Punit Dhillon, President and CEO.

“Also, generation of an antigen-specific CD8 T-cell response provides evidence for a potential mechanism of action for the abscopal responses seen in both preclinical and clinical settings,” said Dhillon.