Dr. Gainor on the Potential Value of Targeting TROP-2 and CEACAM5 in Lung Cancer

Justin Gainor, MD, director, Center for Thoracic Cancers, director of targeted immunotherapy, Massachusetts General Hospital, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the potential value of targeting TROP-2 and CEACAM5 in lung cancer.

Over the last decade, the field of lung cancer has been an area of significant progress, according to Gainor. Targeted therapy has expanded rapidly and now there are multiple different oncogenic drivers for which FDA-approved targeted options are available, Gainor says. Additionally, checkpoint inhibitors and cytotoxic chemotherapy are effective for many patients with lung cancer, Gainor adds.

However, patients who lack an actionable alteration but progress on chemotherapy or immunotherapy are typically treated with single-agent chemotherapy with or without a VEGF inhibitor, Gainor explains. As such, treatment options for this patient population remain an unmet need in lung cancer, Gainor says.

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) could offer a novel approach to treat a significant proportion of patients with lung cancer, who often have upregulation of TROP-2 and CEACAM5, Gainor notes. Moreover, these pathways may offer a vulnerable target in lung cancer that confers sensitivity to ADCs, Gainor concludes.