Imlygine and Yervoy – pro
Imlygic, a genetically modified live oncolytic herpes virus therapy, is used to treat melanoma lesions that cannot be removed completely by surgery. Imlygic is injected directly into the melanoma lesions, where it replicates inside cancer cells and causes the cells to rupture and die.
he safety and efficacy of Imlygic were evaluated in a multicenter study of 436 participants with metastatic melanoma that could not be surgically removed. The participants’ melanoma lesions in the skin and lymph nodes were treated with Imlygic or a comparator therapy for at least six months, or until there were no remaining injectable lesions. The study showed that 16.3 percent of the study participants who received Imlygic experienced a decrease in size of their skin and lymph node lesions, lasting for a minimum of six months, compared to 2.1 percent of the study participants receiving the comparator therapy. However, Imlygic has not been shown to improve overall survival or to have an effect on melanoma that has spread to the brain, bone, liver, lungs, or other internal organs.
Combining it with Yervoy is only now beginning to be studied.The findings of the MASTERKEY-265 (NCT02263508) trial were reported at a poster session during the 2016 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, a gathering of more than 30,000 oncology professionals in Chicago. Combining Imlygic with Yervoy (ipilimumab), which targets different cancer immune response pathways, has improved antitumor responses in patients with unresectable stage 3b/4 melanoma.More clincial investigation si required before using it routinely.
Imlygic Prescribing Information 2016
V. Long, Reinhard Dummer, Antoni Ribas, Igor Puzanov, Ari VanderWalde, Robert Hans Ingemar Andtbacka, Olivier Michielin, Anthony J. Olszanski, Josep Malvehy, Jonathan S. Cebon, Eugenio Fernandez, John M. Kirkwood, Thomas Gajewski, Christine K. Gause, Lisa Chen, Kevin Gorski, Abraham Anderson, David Ross Kaufman, Jeffrey Chou, F. Stephen Hodi; Melanoma Institute Australia and The University of Sydney, North Sydney, Australia; University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA; Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN; University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN; Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; University Hospital Lausanne, Oncology, Lausanne, Switzerland; Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple Health, Philadelphia, PA; Dermatology Department, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Australia; Hopitaux Universitaires de Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland; Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA; The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ; Amgen Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA. Efficacy analysis of MASTERKEY-265 phase 1b study of talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) and pembrolizumab (pembro) for unresectable stage IIIB-IV melanoma.J Clin Oncol 34, 2016 (suppl; abstr 9