"Viralytics (VLA) 38cTHE biotech is doing its best to prove that...

"Viralytics (VLA) 38c

THE biotech is doing its best to prove that virotherapy -- using viruses to attack bad cells -- is an effective way of combating late-stage melanoma.

Unusually, Viralytics has met its primary "endpoint" after enrolling only 44 of the intended 54 candidates in its US clinical trial of Cavatak, which employs the coxsackievirus (a common cold germ) to seek and destroy the tumours.

The first 10 of 30 evaluable patients recorded a "progression free" survival of six months and in some cases the tumour disappeared.

"We are now contemplating what a randomised, phase-two study might look like," Viralytics chief Malcolm McColl says.

In other words, a bigger trial of 150 or so patients that would include a control group of sufferers who remain on their current treatment.

Viralytics' inspiration is the private US virotherapy play Biovex, bought by Amgen for $US425m (and up to $US1bn) last November.

Viralytics remains a spec buy."

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