The biotechnology company Antigenics Inc said on Monday its experimental cancer vaccine improved survival time in 52 per cent of advanced colon cancer patients who responded to the drug in a small mid-stage clinical trial.

Antigenics, based in New York, said all of the 15 patients who responded immunologically to the vaccine, called Oncophage, were alive two years after treatment, compared with 50 per cent of the 14 patients who did not respond. The disease-free survival rate was 51 per cent for responders and 8 per cent for non-responders.

Typically, patients with advanced colon cancer can expect to live for up to a year, said Garo Armen, chief executive of Antigenics.

"These results are not randomized, but in all the patients who showed an immune response, there has been a trend toward benefit in our clinical trials," he said.

Oncophage is a personalized vaccine derived from an individual patient's tumour. Because the injected drug contains the patient's own genetic codes, it is believed to be more effective in reprogramming the immune system to attack the cancer without side effects.

The vaccine is being studied in a range of cancers, including kidney, pancreatic, skin and gastric cancers.

The first pivotal-stage data on Oncophage is expected later this year, with preliminary results from a Phase 3 kidney cancer trial, Armen said. In that study, patients who have had their cancer surgically removed are either being treated with the vaccine or simply observed, which is the standard of care for patients with that stage of kidney cancer, the CEO explained.

Initial results will be compiled when 80 to 100 of the 600 or so participants have had their cancer return, Armen said. Patients who do relapse are then offered chemotherapy drugs or other toxic therapies.

If the results are promising, Antigenics expects to file for US Food and Drug Administration approval of the vaccine in 2004, he added.

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