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Bethesda's Northwest Biotherapeutics reported encouraging results from its phase 1 and phase 1/2 clinical trials with DCVax-Brain in patients with glioblastoma multiforme, the most rapid and lethal type of brain cancer. From June 15 through Jan. 1, none of the 20 patients treated with standard of care plus DCVax-Brain died. So far, 68 percent of treated patients have lived more than two years, with 25 percent living more than five years. In contrast, patients who receive full standard of care — surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — without Northwest's drug have a median survival of only 14.6 months, with fewer than 5 percent surviving five years. DCVax-Brain is a personalized vaccine that takes a patient's own master immune cells and the biomarkers from his tumor tissue, and activates the master immune cells so they can mobilize the full immune system to recognize and kill the tumor cells, according to company information. Source: http://www.gazette.net/stories/02202009/businew175950_32489.shtml