CEL-SCI Corporation announced it has received governmental approval from the Ministry of Health Care and Social Development of the Russian Federation to begin enrollment of subjects for a phase III clinical trial of Multikine in Russia. Russia is one of nine countries to participate in this global phase III trial. The phase III trial will be run at about 48 clinical centres. Three are expected to be located in Russia. The phase III trial was started late last month in the United States. It is expected that all 48 clinical centres will be enrolling patients within a few months. Multikine is the Company's flagship immunotherapy developed as a first-line standard of care in treating head and neck cancer.

CEL-SCI's phase III clinical trial is an open-label, randomized, controlled, multi-centre study designed to determine if Multikine administered prior to current standard of care (Surgery plus Radiotherapy or Surgery plus Concurrent Chemo radiotherapy) in previously untreated subjects with Advanced Primary Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Cavity/Soft Palate (Head and Neck cancer) will result in an increased overall rate of survival versus the subjects treated with standard of care only. CEL-SCI's 880 patient trials is expected to be the largest clinical study of head and neck cancer ever conducted. It will also be the first trial in which immunotherapy will be administered before any other traditional means of care are attempted. This is significant because conventional therapy weakens the immune system, and likely compromises the benefits of immunotherapy.

Phase II clinical trials of Multikine demonstrated the product was safe and well-tolerated and eliminated tumours in 12% of the subjects less than a month into treatment. The Multikine treatment regimen was also shown to kill, on average, about half of the cancer cells in the subjects' tumours before the start of standard therapy. Follow-up studies of subjects enrolled in Phase II trials showed a 33% improvement in the survival rate of those treated with Multikine at a median of three and a half years following surgery. The US Food and Drug Administration granted orphan drug status to Multikine in the neo-adjuvant therapy of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

CEL-SCI Corporation is developing products that empower immune defences. Its lead product is Multikine. In phase II clinical trials Multikine was shown to be safe and well-tolerated, and to improve the patients' overall survival by 33 per cent at a median of three and a half years following surgery.