Featured Story | By Amirah Al Idrus Bristol Myers Squibb is no stranger to mixing checkpoint inhibitors—see the many indications in development for the combination of Opdivo and Yervoy. Now, the drugmaker is one step closer to offering a new checkpoint inhibitor cocktail for the treatment of advanced melanoma, with the first phase 3 data for a LAG-3 antibody in tandem with the PD-1 blocker Opdivo. read more |
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Top Stories By Angus Liu In early cancer that’s amenable to surgery, a field viewed as the next battleground for PD-1/L1 immunotherapies, Roche’s Tecentriq has claimed the first win in non-small cell lung cancer. But the drug’s role, at least in some patients, remains unclear. read more By Amirah Al Idrus PD-1 inhibitors work well in about one-fifth of patients with colorectal cancer, but the other 80% are not so lucky. Their tumors are immunologically “cold,” meaning they don’t respond to immunotherapies like Merck’s Keytruda. Enter favezelimab, Merck’s LAG-3-targeting antibody, which helped Keytruda make a dent in metastatic colorectal cancer in very sick patients in a phase 1 study. read more By Angus Liu Thanks to an FDA nod in 2019, Johnson & Johnson’s Darzalex is used as part of a combination to treat newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients eligible for stem cell transplant. Could extended treatment as a maintenance therapy improve patients’ outcomes? Early data aren’t very encouraging. read more By Annalee Armstrong Johnson & Johnson's cancer combo of amivantamab and lazertinib spurred a response in 36% of patients with a difficult type of non-small cell lung cancer that has relapsed, a result the healthcare giant says could position the therapy as an alternative to tough-to-tolerate chemotherapy. read more By Conor Hale Its Percepta genomic test aims to separate current and former smokers into groups with high and low risks for lung cancer, allowing those whose nodules are most likely benign to avoid additional procedures, while expediting the course of those who may need care sooner. read more By Ben Adams A new early peek at data from Sanofi’s breast cancer hopeful amcenestrant has encouraged the French Big Pharma to see it placed firmly at the front of future treatment pathways. read more By Angus Liu AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s Imbruvica is under increasing pressure from new BTK competitors. The pair hopes a new combination with Venclexta and longer-term data could help consolidate the drug’s lead in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. read more By Angus Liu Merck & Co.’s Keytruda has hit its marks in many tumor types but doesn’t exactly have a successful clinical history in stomach cancer. Now, the drug can at least tout an early win for a subgroup of patients with HER2-positive disease. read more By Ben Adams I-Mab has some early positives from phase 1 trial of its CD73 antibody uliledlimab when wedded to Roche’s Tecentriq. read more By Amirah Al Idrus CAR-T and other cell therapies have seen success in blood cancers but have shown limited effect in solid tumors. Adaptimmune is taking an engineered T-cell receptor approach to change that and its first phase 2 data, from patients with rare soft-tissue sarcomas, look promising. The MAGE-A4-targeting treatment, afamitresgene autolecel, shrank tumors in 39.3% of the patients. read more By Noah Higgins-Dunn Exelixis’ oncology drug Cabometyx improved progression-free survival for a group of thyroid cancer patients and appeared to help with overall survival. But it did not significantly improve the response rate among some patients, according to data to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. read more | 