Dr. Socinski on Recent Setbacks in Immunotherapy Combinations in NSCLC

Mark A. Socinski, MD, executive medical director of the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute, discusses recent setbacks in immunotherapy combinations in non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In January 2017, both Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) an AstraZeneca have announced separate delays in development of PD-1 and CTLA-4 inhibitor combinations for first-line therapy. BMS stated that it would not be pursuing accelerated approval for nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy). AstraZeneca anticipates progression-free survival (PFS) data in the durvalumab plus tremelimumab combination will be delayed until mid-2017 and overall survival (OS) findings until 2018.

According to Socinski, this is a sort of "warning shot"—as the over-excitement for these combinations may have overshadowed issues of toxicity or efficacy in phase III trials.