Abagovomab: An Anti-Idiotypic CA-125 Targeted Immunotherapeutic Agent for Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Ovarian cancer remains the leading cause of death due to gynecologic malignancies. Most patients present with advanced disease at the time of diagnosis. Although many have a good initial response to surgical debulking and platinum-based chemotherapy, relapse is common, with the eventual development of chemotherapy resistance. Innovative treatments are needed in the remission setting to prolong the disease-free interval or prevent recurrence. Abagovomab is a murine monoclonal anti-idiotypic antibody (molecular wieght: 165–175 kDa) that functionally imitates the tumor-associated antigen, CA-125. It has been shown to be well tolerated and to induce a sustained immune response in initial Phase I and II clinical trials. An ongoing, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, Phase III trial (MIMOSA) completed its double-blind period in December 2010 and will compare abagovomab maintenance therapy to placebo, which will definitively determine the efficacy of this immunotherapeutic approach in patients with ovarian cancer.

KEYWORDS::

• abagovomab
• anti-idiotype
• CA-125
• ovarian cancer
• vaccine

Acknowledgements

US enrollment was supported by The Cooperative Ovarian Cancer Group for Immunotherapy (COGI), the US cooperative group around which the accruing sites were organized.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Jonathan Berek, Jacobus Pfisterer and Paul Sabbatini served as the principal or coprincipal investigators of the MIMOSA study. No authors received direct support funding. Support was provided to the institutions in order to conduct the research study. The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.