The Ultimovac UV1 cancer vaccine demonstrated strong survival rates in an ongoing phase 1 study for the treatment of malignant melanoma in combination with pembrolizumab, the exchange announced on Monday.

Across all 30 patients in the study, the 24-month survival rate was 73 percent.

Ultimovac expects to publish three-year survival data for the first cohort of 20 patients in the fourth quarter of 2022.

– These results are the latest in a stream of very encouraging data demonstrating the effectiveness of UV1 in improving the treatment of malignant melanoma. This underscores the potential of UV1 in promoting coordinated immune responses in many types of solid tumors, including those in our broader Phase II program, said Ultimovac CEO Carlos de Sousa in a comment.

– All studies on schedule

Ultimovac lost more operations in the first quarter than the same period last year, and later shows that costs reflect high levels of activity.

“Development of our UV1 universal cancer vaccine is progressing, with one phase I study and five phase II studies underway. (…). Phase I of the Tendu study of our second technological approach based on the TET (Tetanus-Epitope Targeting) platform, is also underway according to plan”, the report said.

In April, Ultimovac received a notification from the US Patent Office approving a US patent on a combination checkpoint inhibitor vaccine to treat cancer. This patent covers UV1 with CTLA-4, PD-1 or PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors.

Ultimovcs has similar patent applications pending in other regions around the world, including Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia.

Gjelsten Holding is the largest shareholder in Ultimovacs with an 18.98 percent stake, ahead of Stein Erik Hagen and family investment firm Canica as the second largest with 7.91 percent.