Victor Moreno, Director of Clinical Research at START Madrid FJD, shared on LinkedIn:
“PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibodies are moving beyond lung cancer. Could triple-negative breast cancer be another setting where this makes sense?
A recently published multicentre phase 2 trial evaluated first-line ivonescimab plus paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel in 36 patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic TNBC.
Among 35 efficacy-evaluable patients, the investigator-assessed objective response rate was 80%, including two complete responses. With 22.1 months of median follow-up, this is an encouraging signal.
Toxicity also deserves attention: 58.3% of patients experienced grade 3 or higher treatment-related adverse events. Grade 3 or higher immune-related events occurred in 11.1%, although there were no treatment-related deaths.
The rationale is attractive: VEGF blockade may modify an immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment while PD-1 inhibition restores antitumour immunity. A bispecific antibody could potentially coordinate both effects more effectively.
But this was a small, single-arm study combining ivonescimab with active chemotherapy. It cannot establish how much the bispecific contributed, whether activity differs by PD-L1 status, or how the regimen compares with current immunotherapy-based standards.
The result supports randomized testing. Translational and biomarker analyses will be particularly important if PD-1/VEGF bispecifics are to become more than another broadly applied immunotherapy combination.”
Title: First-line PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody plus chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer: a phase 2 trial
Authors: Xiying Shao, Can Tian, Zhanhong Chen, Jian Huang, Yongsheng Wang, Tao Sun, Tienan Yi, Yifen Wu, Weihua Sun, Xufang Yu, Zhongmin Maxwell Wang, Baiyong Li, Yu Xia, Xiaojia Wang, and Quchang Ouyang.
You can also read: TQB2102 and the Evolution of HER2 Antibody-Drug Conjugates: Exploring the Role of Payload Optimisation in Breast Cancer
