SillaJen said it unveiled clinical results of REN022, a phase-2 study on Pexa-Vec to treat renal cancer, at the International Oncolytic Virus Conference 2018 in Oxford, the U.K., on Wednesday.

During the study, physicians gave intravenous injections of Pexa-Vec every week to 17 patients with metastatic and refractory renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The Korean biotech firm orally introduced a case of complete remission which has been surviving for 5.5 years along with a 76 percent disease control rate.

The presentation will also be published on Molecular Therapy-Oncolytics, an international medical journal.

“The Great Oncolytic Debate” session hosted by SillaJen was chaired by Kerry Fisher, a professor of oncology at Oxford University and a world-renowned expert who spent nearly 20 years researching oncolytic viruses.

Alan Melcher, principal investigator of Pexa-Vec and a professor of clinical oncology at Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, debated with Steve Russel, a professor at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, over whether repeated dosing was crucial or once treatment was enough.