Ben Kong: Reflecting upon the ESMO Congress achievements

Ben Kong shared on LinkedIn:

“Reflecting upon the ESMO – European Society for Medical Oncology Congress achievements of all my amazing colleagues all of whom work within a stone’s throw of each other at The Prince of Wales Hospital, Scientia Clinical Research, UNSW Medicine and Health at the Randwick Health and Innovation Precinct.

All of these dedicated cancer researchers will be back feeling inspired with their new learnings to push forward better patient care. Proud of them for wearing many hats, collaborating effectively and most importantly showing that they represent a great human capital Return on Investment with thanks to South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD), NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, Sydney Partnership for Health, Education, Research and Enterprise (SPHERE) and Cancer Institute NSW.

Dr Christina Teng (Scientia Clinical Research) gave an oral presentation describing the first-in-human effects of IBI354, a novel HER2 ADC in HER2+ and HER2 low breast cancer (1st author Dr Charlotte Lemech), gaining a mention in the ESMO “highlights” summary. Rounding it off with a poster presentation on the trial in progress using NST-628, the pan-RAF molecular glue and MT-302, a novel TROP2 targeting immunotherapy.

Dr Frank Lin (POWH P-Omics/NHMRC CTC/Garvan/UNSW) and I presented the results of two phase II signal seeking substudies under the MoST/Omico Program in collaboration with NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, showing activity for vemurafenib+cobimetinib in BRAF V600E mutated solid tumours and tucatinib+trastuzumab in HER2 mutated or amplified solid tumours. With thanks to Profs David Thomas and the real David Goldstein for the mentorship.

Dr Omali Pitiyarachchi (UNSW Medicine and Health, ESMO – European Society for Medical Oncology Leaders Generation Program) with Prof Phillips showed that prospectively collected PROs predict outcomes in pancreatic cancer.

Dr Peey Sei Kok (Prince of Wales Private Hospital, NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre) validated in a large pooled analysis (2098 patients) that pCR does correlate with EFS in neoadjuvant lung cancer treatment.

Dr Lucy Haggstrom, Dr Yeh Chen Lee and Prof Michael Friedlander described practice variations and rare adverse outcomes associated with long-term treatment with PARP inhibitors in platinum sensitive ovarian cancer.”

Source: Ben Kong/LinkedIn

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Ben Kong is a Mentor at UNSW Founders, leveraging his experience in oncology and drug development to support emerging startups. He is a Member of the Australian Centre for NanoMedicine and a Staff Specialist at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney. As a Senior Research Fellow at the SPHERE Clinical Academic Group at UNSW, he focuses on thoracic cancers, primary CNS cancers, and brain metastases. He has also served as a Clinical Research Fellow at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre.