RE:EY sees bolt-ons in the single to double digit billions now As a background to a potential acquisition of ONCY, oncolytic viruses (OVs) are one of the most promising methods for remodeling the TME into an antitumor environment, that can be used alone or more particularly, in combination with other immunotherapy options such as ONCY's pelareorep is demonstrating with immune checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T therapy, bispecifics, and small moleclules like PARP, CDK 4/6 and proteasome inhibitors.
By being administered first, ONCY's pelareorep "primes" the immune system and converts the TME into one that is favorable to the later administration of immune checkpoint inhibitors.
ONCY is demonstrating that the sequential administration of intravenous (IV) pelareorep with immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients who have been identified with predicitve/prognostic biomarkers that find changes in blood T cell populations (CeLTiLs/T-cell clonality) to predict patient response, and which has proven more effective that other OVs which, in contrast, were administered simultaneously with immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as Amgen's Imlygic that was given together with Merck's Keytruda. This combination failed because the virus was administered intratumorally (IT) with Keytruda in a broad population of melanoma patients, who were not identified by a biomarker and who had failed 2-3 courses of PD-1 therapy before being included in this IT OV / IV ICI combo trial).
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/oncolytics-biotech-r-and-solti-present-new-clinical-biomarker-data-demonstrating-pelareorep-s-potential-to-improve-the-prognosis-of-breast-cancer-patients-at-the-esmo-breast-cancer-meeting-858869893.html