Inovio starts recurrent breast cancer trial with selective electrochemical tumor ablation therapy

By Jennifer Chiou

New York, Oct. 20 - Inovio Biomedical Corp. said it began a Phase I clinical trial to treat locally recurrent cancer after a mastectomy or partial mastectomy using its selective electrochemical tumor ablation (Secta) therapy.

This study is designed to show the Inovio therapy, which provides selectivity in killing cancerous cells, can preserve surrounding healthy tissue when treating solid tumors.

"I believe that our selective electrochemical tumor ablation therapy has tremendous benefits to offer the many women who must endure not only the general trauma of having cancer but the potential emotional effects of complete or partial surgical removal of a breast," president and chief executive officer Avtar Dhillon said in a news release.

"We are pleased to initiate this study, which marks the sixth clinical trial that Inovio has planned to display the broad utility and large market potential of our Secta therapy."

As an alternative to mastectomy for managing recurrences after prior breast conserving therapy, Secta may provide quality-of-life benefits to patients.

The FDA-approved study is a multi-center, open label, single treatment arm trial for up to 24 patients with locally recurrent or metastatic in-breast carcinoma after partial mastectomy or cutaneous or sub-cutaneous recurrent or metastatic carcinoma of the breast or chest wall following mastectomy. Its goal is to assess the therapy's safety profile.

San Diego-based Inovio is a late-stage developer of oncology and other therapies using electroporation to deliver drugs and nucleic acids. Its lead product, the MedPulser, is in pre-marketing studies for head, neck and skin cancers in Europe.

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