Viagene gene therapy
Executive Summary
Treatment of patients has begun in Viagene's Phase I human gene therapy study to treat malignant melanoma, the San Diego company announces August 11. The protocol for the trial, approved by NIH's Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at its June 7-8 meeting, calls for transducing tumor cells with coding for gamma interferon, which Viagene licensed from Genentech earlier this year. The principal investigator of the 20-patient study is Hilliard Seigler, MD, Duke University Medical Center.