Advantages of CG0070 Over Standard Care for Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer

“Our oncolytic virus would essentially allow us to only target cancer cells and not normal cells, sparing the healthy tissue. So, there will be a toxicity and safety profile advantage. Also, we think we'll be able to better supply and serve the community with our manufacturing process versus BCG, which is really based on 100-year-old manufacturing process.”

Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) bacteria is a common intravesical immunotherapy for treating early-stage bladder cancer. While the established treatment has long demonstrated efficacy, CG Oncology believes that its novel immunotherapy, CG0070, has advantages over the bacteria including ease of manufacturing and specific targeting to cancer cells.

CG0070 is an oncolytic immunotherapy that uses a genetically modified oncolytic adenovirus delivered through a catheter to target and destroy bladder tumor cells through their defective retinoblastoma pathway.

CG Oncology recently dosed the first patient in the phase 2 CORE-001 trial (NCT04387461) of CG0070 in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda; Merck) for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer unresponsive to BCG in December 2020. The trial aims to evaluate the safety and efficacy of CG0070 plus Keytruda in up to 35 patients.

GeneTherapyLive spoke with Arthur Kuan, chief executive officer, CG Oncology, to learn more about the potential advantages of CG0070 compared with BCG.

REFERENCE

CG Oncology announces first patient dosed in phase 2 clinical trial of CG0070, an oncolytic immunotherapy, in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer unresponsive to bacillus calmette-guerrin. News release. CG Oncology. December 9, 2020. https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/cg-oncology-announces-first-patient-dosed-in-phase-2-clinical-trial-of-cg0070-an-oncolytic-immunotherapy-in-combination-with-keytruda-pembrolizumab-for-non-muscle-invasive-bladder-cancer-unresponsive-to-bacillus-calmette-guerin/