According to the Associate Press, pharmaceutical company Mustang Bio, Inc. and Nationwide Children’s Hospital announced this week that they have entered into an exclusive worldwide license agreement to develop C134 – the attenuated herpes simplex virus developed for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme by UAB Department of Neurosurgery Chair James Markert, M.D., MPH, in collaboration with Nationwide’s Kevin Cassady, M.D.
Markert is already the principal investigator on a phase-one clinical trial focused on evaluating C134 for patients with recurring malignant glioma, funded by the National Cancer Institute in 2018. Markert has hypothesized that the virus would both directly kill the tumor cells through viral replication and secondarily kill tumor cells by inciting an antitumor response.