Four years after Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s (BMS) $1.85 billion investment in Nektar Therapeutics Inc., the pair’s collaboration has stumbled mightily with a phase III failure. A first analysis their melanoma study, PIVOT IO-001, showed it missed three primary endpoints. The study of interleukin-2-targeting NKTR-214 (bempegaldesleukin) combined with Opdivo (nivolumab) compared to Opdivo monotherapy as a first-line treatment for previously untreated, unresectable or metastatic melanoma did not meet the primary endpoints of progression-free survival and objective response rate.
Oncorus Inc. offered initial safety, tolerability and immune activation and clinical response data from its ongoing phase I trial with ONCR-177 at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) meeting. In the fully enrolled and completed surface lesion, dose-escalation part of the study, single-agent ONCR-177, an oncolytic herpes simplex virus for intratumoral injection, proved well-tolerated with no dose-limiting toxicities.
It’s been a decade since the first checkpoint inhibitors were approved, but the problem of low response rates remains in many forms of cancer. Highlight Therapeutics SL, of Valencia, Spain, hopes to change all that with an approach that primes the body to become more responsive to immunotherapies.
Shares of Ultimovacs ASA (OSE:ULTI) climbed 16.6% to NOK148.60 (US$17.82) on news the FDA will expedite an eventual review of its investigational cancer vaccine, UV-1, in combination with checkpoint inhibitors for the potential treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma.
In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas. Involvement of epigenetic factors in cancers, or their targeting, is not new in cancer – as HDAC inhibitors as well as newer drugs such as the EZH2 inhibitor Tazverik (tazemetostat, Epizyme Inc.) demonstrate. But to Richard White and his colleagues, the point of their work is not so much about individual targets.
In studies that give new insights into both developmental biology and the origins of melanoma, investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College have identified the activity of chromatin remodeling protein ATAD2 as necessary for cells with the oncogenic mutation V600E to give rise to melanomas.
LONDON – Endomag Ltd. has received endorsement from the U.K. health technology assessment body NICE, opening the way to broader adoption of its Magtrace non-radioactive cancer staging technology in the National Health Service, and providing backing for commercialization of the system in other markets.
Oncohost Ltd. has opened eight U.K. trial sites in the study assessing the ability of its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven proteomics profiling technology to single out which cancer patients will respond to treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors. The sites will carry out proteomic analyses of blood samples from patients with late-stage melanoma or non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), to predict their likely response to immunotherapy.
Phase II data from Iovance Biotherapeutics Inc. in advanced melanoma at the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology turned up an important relationship between previous anti-PD-1 therapy exposure and the durability of treatment response. Findings added weight to the idea that tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) should be deployed earlier in therapy.
Veriskin Inc. has emerged from stealth mode with a noninvasive technology for skin cancer diagnosis and screening. The hand-held device, called Truscore, is designed to help nonexpert users quickly ascertain if a suspicious skin lesion is cancerous. Truscore works by detecting and interpreting force-induced hemodynamic differences between normal and malignant skin sores. It uses a proprietary artificial neural network-based artificial intelligence algorithm and protocols to differentiate skin cancers from other harmless skin conditions.