Dr. Somaiah on CMB305 in Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Neeta Somaiah, MD, assistant professor, Department of Sarcoma Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase I findings of CMB305 in patients with NY-ESO-1—positive recurrent soft tissue sarcoma.

CMB305 is a prime boost immunotherapy that targets the NY-ESO-1 antigen, Somaiah explains. It consists of a dendritic cell targeting that is co-administered with G305, which is a potent agonist given with the entire NY-ESO-1 protein. This leads to robust immune response with both T cells and antibodies.

This is a phase I dose-escalation study with a dose-expansion cohort. Of the total 49 patients included in the safety population, 25 had sarcoma—the majority of which had synovial sarcoma or myxoid liposarcoma. The results of this study included patients who had relapsed metastatic sarcoma with a limited tumor burden.

It was found that the median overall survival (OS) of these 25 patients had not yet been reached. Eighty-three percent of patients were still alive at 1 year; the 12-month OS rate was 83%, and 76% of patients are still alive at 19 months.