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CompletedNCT02079324GX-051Updated Aug 22, 2025

Genetically Modified Mesenchymal Stem Cell Theraopeutic Against Head and Neck Cancer

A Phase 1 interventional study of GX-051 in Head and Neck Cancer, sponsored by Genexine, Inc.. Completed at 1 site in South Korea. Open to participants aged 19 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-08-22.

Sponsored by Genexine, Inc. · Phase 1, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Phase 1
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
12
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
19 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this research is to evaluate MTD, Safety and efficacy of GX-051 after intratumoral injection in head and neck cancer patience.

Read the detailed description

The primary purpose of the study is to determine MTD(Maximum Tolerable Dose) of GX-051 administered in tumor. The second purpose is to evaluate safety and efficacy of GX-051.

02

Conditions studied

  • Head and Neck Cancer

Keywords

  • head and neck cancer
  • gene therapy
  • stem cell therapy
  • immunotherappy
03

In context

Head and Neck Neoplasms

2,710 studies on the registry are indexed under Head and Neck Neoplasms; 594 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 12 is below the median of 46 across 2,032 interventional studies indexed under Head and Neck Neoplasms.

Browse Head and Neck Neoplasms studies →

Lead sponsor

Genexine, Inc. is the lead sponsor of 36 studies on the registry; 1 is open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
19 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Are capable of understanding and complying with the requirements of the study and have signed the from (ICF).
  • Very advanced head and neck cancer aged more than 19.
  • Longest distance of the tumor is bigger than 1 cm and capable of Intratumoral injection.
  • Baseline Performance Status 0, 1 or 2.
  • Have a more than 6 months.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Have no history of prior anticancer treatment.
  • Female patients who are pregnant or breast feeding, or adults of who are not using effective methods.Subject who have participated in a clinical trial of an treatment vaccine or immunotherapy in an year.
  • Have a tumor which is near a main vessel that can be occured embolism after injection or which has hypervascularity.
  • Patients currently receiving anticancer immuno-therapies Patients who have received prior treatment with an stem cell therapy.
  • Have disease (multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythromatosis, thyroiditis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel diseases etc.).
  • Have Graft rejection reaction such as .
  • Have immunodeficiency disease.
  • Leukocytes\< 3.0 x109/L.
  • \< 1.5x109/L.
  • count \< 100 x 109/L.
  • Have known positive test for surface antigen, antibody, and (HIV).
  • (ALT) > 2.5xUNL.
  • Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST)> 2.5xUNL.
  • Total > UNL.
  • Have blood Creatinine> UNL.
  • Known allergy to IL-12 or the (s) of the study medication including fetal bovine serum.
  • Second primary cancer brain tumor or meningioma.
  • Have a tumor near a main artery.
  • Uncontrolled hypertension.
  • Uncontrolled diabetes uncontrolled (arrhythmia).
  • Heart failure (more than Functional Class II); unstable coronary artery disease; myocardial infarction within 6 months.
  • Class C hepatic impairment.
  • Severe renal impairment ( \< 30 ml/min) or on dialysis.
  • Have active infection or history of recurrent infection.
  • Patients who have any severe and/or uncontrolled medical conditions or other conditions that could affect their participation in the study.
  • Are considered ineligible by the investigator due to a mental disease or CNS disease.
  • Administration of any other tumor therapy, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy within 4 weeks(6 weeks in case of nitrosoureas and mytomycin C) before the beginning of study treatment.
  • Patients receiving chronic, systemic treatment with agent() or immuno-modulator within 2 weeks prior to screening.
  • Have participated in another clinical trial within 30 days prior to dosing.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(21)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

ECOG performance status

A scale of how much an illness limits everyday activity. For people being assessed to join a study, scores run from 0 (fully active) to 4; lower is more active.

0
Fully active, no restrictions.
1
Limited in strenuous activity, but walking and able to do light work, such as housework or office work.
2
Walking and able to look after yourself, but unable to work; up and about more than half of waking hours.
3
Able to look after yourself only in part; in bed or a chair more than half of waking hours.
4
Unable to look after yourself at all; in bed or a chair all day.

Studies most often ask for 0–1 or 0–2. Your doctor gives the score; the WHO scale uses the same steps. The full scale also has 5, which records death.

Life expectancy

The study doctor’s estimate of how long someone is likely to live. Criteria use it so that people can stay in the study long enough for it to answer its question.

Reproductive potential

Able to have children. For women this usually means from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery; for men, unless permanently sterile. Read who the line is about — participants, women, men, or their partners.

Criteria about it usually ask for contraception during the study and for a time after it.

Contraception

Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.

Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

GVHD (graft-versus-host disease)

After a transplant from a donor, the donor’s immune cells attack the recipient’s body, often the skin, gut or liver.

Absolute neutrophil count (ANC)

The number of neutrophils, white blood cells that help fight infection, in a given amount of blood. Too few raises the risk of infection.

It is a count, not a percentage of the white cells. Limits are written in units that mean the same: ≥ 1.5 × 10⁹/L is ≥ 1,500 per mm³ (µL). Each lab has its own reference range.

Platelets

Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.

Hepatitis B tests

Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.

Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.

Hepatitis C tests

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.

After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

ALT and AST (liver enzymes)

Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.

Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.

Bilirubin

A yellow substance made when red blood cells are broken down, which the liver clears. A high level can mean a problem with the liver or the bile ducts.

Criteria often allow more for people with Gilbert’s syndrome, a harmless inherited condition that raises bilirubin.

Excipients

The other ingredients in a medicine besides the active drug, such as fillers, colours or preservatives.

Metastases

Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.

NYHA class (heart failure)

The New York Heart Association’s four classes of how much heart failure limits physical activity.

I
No limits: ordinary activity causes no undue tiredness or breathlessness.
II
Slight limits: comfortable at rest, ordinary activity causes symptoms.
III
Marked limits: comfortable at rest, less than ordinary activity causes symptoms.
IV
Symptoms even at rest; any activity makes them worse.

Studies set their own limit — many outside heart failure leave out class III–IV, while heart failure studies may ask for a particular class. Check the class this study names.

Child-Pugh class

A score of how well the liver works in people with liver disease such as cirrhosis: class A is mild, B moderate and C severe.

Creatinine clearance (CrCl)

How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.

Immunosuppression

A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.

Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.

Corticosteroids (steroids)

Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.

Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 1
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
12 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    GX-051

    GX-051 intratumoral injection

    Biological: GX-051

Interventions

  • BiologicalGX-051

    intratumoral injection

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. MTD after GX-051 intratumoral injection

    Time frame: 2 months

Secondary outcomes

  1. Adverse events after GX-051 intratumoral injection

    Time frame: 2 months

  2. Anti-tumor response by RECIST 1.1 on computed tomography

    Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) are used to determine objective clinical response. Complete Rresponse (CR) is the disappearance of all target lesions, partial response (PR) is at least a 30% decrease in the target lesions, progressive disease (PD) is at least a 20% increase in the target lesions or appearance of one or more new lesions, and stable disease (SD) is neither sufficient shrinkage to qualify for PR nor sufficient increase to qualify for PD.

    Time frame: 2 months

  3. Changes of INF-γ and IL-12 levels in blood comparing to the baseline after GX-051 intratumoral injection

    unit: pg/ml

    Time frame: 2 months

  4. Changes of immune cell distribution in tumor tissue after GX-051 intratumoral injection

    We will analyze immune cells such as CD4+ T cell, CD8+ T cell, NK cell by FACS analysis on day 1(baseline), day 29(end of treatment) and day 57(follow up)

    Time frame: 2 months

  5. Evaluation of antibody generation against IL-12 which is active ingredient of GX-051

    We will analyze anti-IL-12 antibody in blood by ELISA on the screening visit and the follw up visit. Result will report as existence or absence of the anti-body .

    Time frame: 2 months

  6. Evaluation of long term safety examined by vital sign, physical examination, clinical laboratory tests, CT etc

    Safety profile would be examined by vital sign, physical examination, clinical laboratory tests, CT etc

    Time frame: 17 monthes

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Seoul St.Mary's Hospital of the Catholic University of Korea
    Seoul, 137-701, South Korea
08

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 22, 2025, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
09

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT02079324
Lead sponsor
Genexine, Inc.
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Mar 5, 2014
Start date
Mar 2014
Primary completion
Sep 2016
Completion
Sep 2016
Last update
Aug 22, 2025

Study contacts

Minsik Kim, M.D.
principal investigator · Seoul St.Mary's Hospital of the Catholic University of Korea
Hyun-Tak Jin, ph.D.
study director · Genexine, Inc.

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Mar 2014. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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