Phio Pharmaceuticals Corp. (Nasdaq: PHIO), a US-based clinical stage biotechnology company, announced on Wednesday that its clinical development partner, AgonOx, Inc, a clinical stage biotechnology company whose proprietary INTASYL RNAi platform technology is designed to make immune cells more effective in killing tumour cells, has, in partnership with Providence Cancer Institute, completed the site initiation visit and can commence patient accrual for their collaborative clinical trial of PH-762.

The clinical trial is intended to evaluate the safety and the potential for improved therapeutic benefit from the administration of Phio's PH-762 treated 'double positive' (DP) CD8 tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in subjects with melanoma and other advanced solid tumours. The trial will be carried out at Providence Cancer Institute in Portland, Oregon, by principal investigator Brendan Curti, MD, Medical Oncologist and Robert W Franz endowed chair for Clinical Research at the Earle A Chiles Research Institute, a division of Providence.

Phio Pharmaceuticals received FDA approval to start a clinical trial of intratumoral PH-762 in subjects with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, and Merkel cell carcinoma. The trial is likely to start in the second half of 2023.