TNFerade, an innovative cancer immunotherapeutic

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is a chemokine with effective tumoricidal properties. However, severe systemic toxicity limits its use of as anticancer agent. TNFerade is a novel replication deficient adenovector based gene therapy, which enables the radiation inducible translation of human TNF-alpha gene specifically in cancer cells. When injected intratumorally, it has least systemic distribution. Consequently, it lacks TNF-alpha related systemic toxicity. Evidence suggests that it has superior tumoricidal activity and tolerability with minimum adverse effects. It has demonstrated its beneficial role in the treatment of a variety of cancers in terms of improving the disease free and overall survival, delaying tumor progression, and inducing tumor regression when used with concurrent radiotherapy or chemotherapy.