Development of a new fusion-enhanced oncolytic immunotherapy platform based on herpes simplex virus type 1

The new HSV-1 based platform described provides a potent and versatile approach to developing new oncolytic immunotherapies for clinical use. Each of the modifications employed was demonstrated to aid in optimizing the potential of the virus to both directly kill tumors and to lead to systemic therapeutic benefit. For clinical use, these viruses are expected to be most effective in combination with other anti-cancer agents, in particular PD1/L1-targeted immune checkpoint blockade. The first virus from this program (expressing GALV-GP-R^- and hGM-CSF) has entered clinical development alone and in combination with anti-PD1 therapy in a number of tumor types (NCT03767348).