Lung Cancer Update, Issue 3, 2016 (Video Program) - Video 24Activity of the antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine in small cell lung cancer
1:56 minutes.
TRANSCRIPTION:
DR BLUMENSCHEIN: I think this drug looked very promising. This was a Phase I first-in-human study. But they enrolled approximately 70 patients with small cell lung cancer. And the reason to go after DLL3, in this particular patient population, is it’s expressed on small cell cancer cells, roughly 80% or more you’ll see DLL3. And what this does is, it inhibits Notch. So this is, again, an ADC where you have the antibody and then you have a payload which causes DNA strand breaks. And they saw activity in these patients, both in the second-line setting and in the third-line setting. In fact, in the third-line setting response rates were 50% in small cell lung cancer, which is amazing. Again, small number of patients, but very robust responses. They saw an overall response rate of about 40%. I think it was 39% or 40% in patients who expressed greater than 50% DLL3. Which turns out to be about two thirds of patients with small cell lung cancer. So it’s an identifiable biomarker to select therapy, akin to what we’re using now with EGFR mutations and EGFR inhibitors. DR LOVE: Hmmm, that’s really interesting. And, again, from what you can tell, are these responses clinically meaningful? Reasonable duration? DR BLUMENSCHEIN: Yes. The responses seem to be durable. The overall survival rate was better than you would expect with standard of care. And historically, looking back at topotecan, which is the one approved regimen in the refractory setting, more robust responses, more durable responses. So I think this is a drug that we’re very excited about. And right now, there’s an ongoing Phase II study in third-line non-small cell lung cancer. And their plan is, obviously, to bring this forward into the front-line setting and look at immunotherapy combinations as well. So I think this is an exciting compound. |