ZIOPHARM Announces Positive Interim Results in Patients With Advanced Melanoma From Ongoing Phase 1/2 Study of Ad-RTS-IL-12

ZIOPHARM Oncology (Nasdaq: ZIOP) today announced positive interim results from its ongoing Phase 1/2 study of Ad-RTS-IL-12, a novel DNA-based therapeutic candidate that is being evaluated with the oral activator, veledimex, in patients with advanced melanoma. The results from this multicenter study were presented at Melanoma Bridge 2013 Conference at the session "Best Abstracts on News in Immunotherapy", an international conference co-sponsored by Istituto Nazionale Tumori Fondazione, Sidra Medical and Research Center, and the Society for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer that is being held in Naples, Italy. In this study, 21 patients with unresectable, recurrent stage III/IV melanoma have been treated with intratumoral injections of Ad-RTS-IL-12 and the oral activator veledimex. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of the Ad-RTS-IL-12 and veledimex therapy, determine tumor and immune response, and select the optimal dose and schedule of veledimex for future study. To date, expression of IL-12 mRNA in study subjects' tumors was determined to be very high and tightly controlled by veledimex dose with expression See full press release