clinical_trial_4

Patient death in gene therapy trial sends Ziopharm stocks falling

pharmafile | July 18, 2016 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing ziopharm 

Ziopharm Oncology has issued a statement following the death of a patient enrolled on a Phase I clinical trial for an experimental gene therapy in a rare form of brain tumour, calling it an “isolated incident”.

Enrolment remains open for the trial which is testing Ad-RTS-hIL-12 in combination with orally administered veledimex in patients with recurrent or progressive glioblastoma or grade III malignant glioma. The patient died as a result of intracranial haemorrhage.

The statement from Ziopharm states: “This is an isolated case, and there have been no reported instances of brain haemorrhage in any previous cohort or prior studies with Ad-RTS-hIL-12 + veledimex. Enrolment remains open in the study, and we will be discussing with our Safety Review Committee the appropriate course of action.”

Shares at the company declined as much as 23% upon the announcement of the news before recovering slightly.

Ziopharm indicates that it remains encouraged by other data from the trial and will continue to test the treatment in this indication.

Sean Murray

Related Content

FDA places hold on Ziopharm CAR-T trial

CAR-T is emerging as one of the most potentially exciting therapies in the industry, particularly …

Latest content