Predictive biomarker for cancer therapy
View Patent ↗The present invention relates generally to the identification of patients suffering from cancer whether they will respond to specific therapies. More particularly the invention relates to a method and means for identifying responder to a therapy TLR-9 agonists.
1. A method for treating a patient suffering from cancer or an autoimmune disease with TLR-9 agonist MGN1703, wherein said method comprises:
taking a blood sample from a patient suffering from cancer or an autoimmune disease;
determining the frequency of activated natural killer T (NKT) cells of the blood sample of the patient;
predicting or monitoring whether the patient will respond or responds to the treatment with the TLR-9 agonist MGN1703, by evaluating whether the patient has a frequency of at least 3% of activated NKT cells of the whole NKT cell population; and
administering, or continuing to administer, the TLR-9 agonist MGN1703 to a patient having a frequency of at least 3% of activated NKT cells of the whole NKT cell population.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein previously an induction therapy with a non-DNA drug was performed on the patient.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein said patient suffers from cancer.
4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the TLR-9 agonist MGN1703 is part of a pharmaceutical composition.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the pharmaceutical composition is a vaccine.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of determining the frequency of activated natural killer T (NKT) cells of a blood sample of the patient comprises the steps of:
staining the blood sample with fluorescence-labelled antibodies:
Anti CD3-FITC,
Anti CD56-PE,
Anti CD69-APC;
incubating the sample; and
performing fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), wherein the activated NKT cells are gated as CD3 positive, CD56 positive and CD69 positive cells.