“We believe BgRT will one day treat all visible tumor sites, which could lead to better patient outcomes, particularly when used with immunotherapy,” said Todd Powell, CEO and president of RefleXion. “The collaboration with Merck will allow us to explore this combined effect in randomized controlled clinical trials that, if successful, may lead to significant changes in the way physicians approach cancer care for patients with late-stage disease.”
RefleXion recently announced the close of a $100M equity financing round, the sale of their first commercial system and FDA clearance for the X1 machine for conventional radiotherapy applications. The X1 is the only platform that includes high quality computed tomography (CT) imaging to reduce motion artifacts during patient setup and x-ray treatment delivery, resulting in accurate targeting of the radiation dose to a patient’s tumor.
About Combining Immunotherapy and External Beam Radiotherapy
External Beam Radiotherapy (EBRT) by itself treats a discrete target to provide local tumor control; however, clinical evidence suggests that EBRT potentially converts the locally radiated tumor into an in situ vaccine that contributes to systemic control of the cancer.2 The exploration of EBRT with immunotherapy began in earnest after a rapid succession of advances led to a corresponding acceleration of clinical trials and FDA approvals of different drugs for various cancer indications. Ongoing clinical trials for this combined approach are aimed at confirming safety and demonstrating clinical efficacy, determining the appropriate dosing and sequencing of each treatment, and developing biomarkers to identify the patients most likely to benefit.3
About RefleXion Medical
RefleXion is a privately-held therapeutic oncology company developing the first biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT) machine, a significant change in strategy from single tumor therapy to the ability to one day treat multiple tumors in the same treatment session in cancers that have metastasized. Currently, the RefleXion machine is cleared for the delivery of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), all different techniques of EBRT. The company is also developing BgRT, which incorporates positron-emission tomography (PET) data to enable tumors to continuously signal their location. The BgRT technology will synchronize these data with the linear accelerator to direct radiotherapy to tumors with subsecond latency.
