SELLAS Life Sciences Group (NASDAQ:SLS) and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center will conduct a Phase 1 study of SELLAS’ galinpepimut-S (GPS) in combination with nivolumab in patients with relapsed or refractory malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).
GPS is a vaccine that targets Wilms’ tumor-1, a protein that is overexpressed in an array of cancer types. A Phase 2 trial of GPS monotherapy in MPM patients, completed in 2017, increased median survival to 22.8 months from 18.3 months seen in the control group.
“The nivolumab/GPS immunotherapy combination is well positioned to exploit the unique features of each of these two agents through potential synergistic immune-based mechanisms of antitumor action,” Angelos Stergiou, SELLAS’ president and CEO, said in a statement.
GPS is also currently being studied in combination with another PD-L1 inhibitor, pembrolizumab, in Phase 1/2 clinical study in five cancer indications.