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Rob Rawlinson: Plenty of food for thought during the education session on ADCs at ASCO24

Photo taken from Rob Rawlinson/LinkedIn

Jun 2, 2024, 23:50

Rob Rawlinson: Plenty of food for thought during the education session on ADCs at ASCO24

Rob Rawlinson, Lead Director Oncology at Lumanity, recently shared on LinkedIn:

“ASCO DAY 2

The exhibition hall opened, with some fantastic pharma stands. Plus plenty of interesting early-stage data during the poster sessions and a very informative educational session on ADCs.

Plenty of food for thought during the education session on ADCs. Key takeaways:

ADC resistance is complex; it could be patient and/ or tumor-specific and there may be multiple resistance mechanisms for each ADC
High need to develop next-gen ADCs for greater therapeutic benefit AND biomarkers to better predict response
Sequencing of ADCs remains a big question

Also, a poster grabbed my attention. A phase I study investigating evalstotug, an anti-CTLA-4, plus nivolumab in solid tumors. I asked the trial investigator how they managed to achieve a median number of 7.2 doses. Anti-CTLA-4s generally provide strong therapeutic benefits yet are notoriously toxic. This has led to existing anti-CTLA-4 containing regimens to limit the number of doses to 1-4.

He explained this drug is designed to block CTLA-4 specifically in the low pH conditions of the tumor microenvironment, which leads to reduced toxicity and likely greater efficacy. A great example of modifying an existing mode of action to deliver improved outcomes.

Stay tuned for more data readouts on Sunday, including the highly anticipated Plenary session!”

Rob Rawlinson: Plenty of food for thought during the education session on ADCs at ASCO24