At this meeting we presented data on enadenotucirev in combination with nivolumab on a phase I clinical trial. The poster at this meeting was really focused on patients with colorectal cancer. This study included multiple histologies. What has been interesting is that in a large cohort of colorectal cancer enrolled on this study we have seen a significant number of disease stability but what we were impressed with is actually the fact that these patients on this study have lived longer than expected. The median overall survival of those patients was more than 12 months, despite the fact that these patients are refractory to all standards of care. So that’s considerably better than what you would expect with best supportive care or even with some of the approved agents in this area, such as regorafenib or trifluridine. Of note we have seen one patient with microsatellite stability who had low tumour mutation burden who had a very dramatic response to the combination of enadenotucirev and nivolumab. This patient had a BRAF mutation. So we are hopeful that it is possible that the attenuated adenovirus enadenotucirev is able to synergise somewhat in some patients in combination with checkpoint inhibitors.

Is this a novel treatment in this disease type?

Yes. I think there’s more to be learned. The prior studies have suggested that enadenotucirev increases T-cell infiltration in the tumour and results in an inflamed phenotype. It’s possible that that may result in basically some synergy with checkpoint inhibitors given the T-cell infiltration and the potential up-regulation of PD-1 in that setting. I think we need to figure out what are the biomarkers of response. We need to understand better the mechanisms of synergy and resistance as well.