Calviri - a biotech company that develops off-the-shelf therapeutic and preventative cancer vaccines for dogs and people - has initiated an investigational trial to treat dogs with early-stage hemangiosarcoma. The study, called Scout Out Canine Hemangiosarcoma (SOCH), aims to determine if Calviri's pre-made vaccine can extend the life of dogs with stage 1 or stage 2 tumors when used in combination with standard care therapy, including surgery and chemotherapy.
While personalized cancer vaccines that are tailored to individual mutations in tumor DNA are showing promise when used with checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, they may be impractical to build and prohibitively expensive to use in dogs. Calviri has identified a different source of neoantigens created from tumor RNA variants that are shared across patients and tumor types, allowing them to design off-the-shelf vaccines for treating them. A recent clinical trial tested a preventative cancer vaccine from similarly identified neoantigens in dogs.
The SOCH trial will be the first to focus on early-stage tumors, hoping that treating tumors when they are smaller and less advanced will result in significantly higher survival rates. The trial is expected to last two years and enroll up to 80 companion dogs at the University of Wisconsin, Colorado State University, and the University of California-Davis. While some dogs will be randomly assigned to either a control group receiving a mock vaccine and others to a test group receiving the investigational vaccine, both will receive standard of care (surgery and chemotherapy) in addition.
The trial is funded by Calviri and a generous donation from David MacNeil in memory of his beloved golden retriever Scout, who many remember from his appearances in several Super Bowl commercials.
Dr. Sami Al-Nadaf, director of the trial at UC-Davis, encouraged interested owners and veterinarians to email oncclinicaltrials@vetmed.wisc.edu for more information, adding that "The faster we can enroll dogs, the sooner we will find out if the vaccine can help those diagnosed with HSA."
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