June 2019, Vol 10, No 3

Atlanta, GA—The combination of the investigational MET inhibitor savolitinib plus the EGFR inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso) achieved encouraging responses in patients with MET-amplified, EGFR-positive non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and acquired, MET-driven resistance to previous therapies, with an acceptable side-effect profile. These findings represent interim results of 2 expansion cohorts of a phase 1b clinical trial presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

The adjuvant use of the antibody-drug conjugate trastuzu­mab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) led to a clinically meaningful and significant improvement in disease-free survival versus trastuzumab (Herceptin) in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer and residual invasive disease, despite the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus HER2-targeted therapy.

San Francisco, CA—Moving combination immunotherapy into the neoadjuvant setting for patients with stage III melanoma induces a higher rate of pathologic response than adjuvant therapy, said Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, Division of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, Netherlands Cancer Institute, ­Amsterdam, at the 2019 ASCO-­SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—Ovarian cancers with BRCA mutations are less immunogenic than other DNA repair–deficient tumors. Targeting the DNA damage response using PARP inhibitors may help to improve the modest responses of ovarian cancer seen with single-agent immune checkpoint inhibitors, said ­Panagiotis A. Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, Director of Translational Research, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, at the 2019 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—Patients with ovarian cancer can respond to immunotherapy, but rationally designed synergistic combinations will be necessary to enhance upfront efficacy and to sustain durability, said Daniel J. Powell Jr, PhD, Scientific Director of Immunotherapy, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Center for Cellular Immunotherapy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, at the 2019 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

Atlanta, GA—Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has had dramatic results in hematologic malignancies, but so far, getting CAR T-cells to work in solid tumors has proved elusive. That may be about to change if promising results from a phase 1 clinical trial are confirmed by further studies. The results of this pivotal study were presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting.

Atlanta, GA—Preclinical and clinical data support the potential for the investigational novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) infigratinib for the treatment of different FGFR-driven tumor types, according to Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Medical Oncology, the Ohio State University, Columbus, who presented a poster with the preclinical results at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting.

Atlanta, GA—The investigational PI3K inhibitor umbralisib had encouraging activity as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal-zone lymphoma in an analysis of the phase 2 UNITY-NHL trial. Interim results were presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting.

On May 24, 2019, the FDA approved Piqray (alpelisib; Novartis), an oral PIK3 inhibitor, in combination with endocrine therapy with fulvestrant (Faslodex), for the treatment of postmenopausal women, as well as men, with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer and PIK3CA mutation (as detected by an FDA-approved test) that progressed during or after an ­endocrine-based treatment regimen. The FDA used its priority review designation to consider the application of alpelisib.

On May 3, 2019, the FDA approved a new indication for ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla; Genentech) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer who have residual invasive disease after neoadjuvant taxane- and trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based treatment. The FDA granted this application priority review.