Immuno-Oncology

A blood-based test to assess tumor mutational burden (TMB) was recently discovered as being able to accurately identify patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who could benefit from checkpoint inhibitor treatment. The study, conducted by researchers at UC Davis, Genentech, and Foundation Medicine, was published in Nature Medicine.

Celyad, a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, recently announced that the FDA has accepted its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for CYAD-101, the first non–gene-edited allogeneic clinical program.

Bristol-Myers Squibb recently announced that the European Commission has approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with melanoma that have lymph node involvement or metastatic disease and who have undergone complete resection.

A new study published in Nature Biotechnology found that by attaching a kind of cytokine “backpack” to T-cells through the use of a nanoparticle gel enhanced their efficacy in treating tumors in mice.

KEYNOTE-048, a phase 3 trial studying pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a first-line treatment for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) whose tumors overexpress PD-L1, has met a primary end point of overall survival.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis published in The Lancet Oncology found that men with advanced cancers respond better than women to treatment with anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA-4 immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Genentech announced yesterday that the FDA has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with bevacizumab (Avastin) as a first-line treatment for patients with the most common form of liver cancer, advanced or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).