Articles

Although medical cannabis has been used successfully as a palliative therapy in patients with cancer, it is still stigmatized because of its illicit scheduling. However, as research on cannabis use in oncology matures and the stigma begins to fall away, more states are allowing for pharmacist oversight of this product, and its legalization continues to spread.

The first “off-the-shelf” chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell platform targeting CD7 induced a complete response (CR) with no minimal residual disease (MRD) in 4 of the first 5 adults with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) who received treatment with the universal CAR T-cell therapy currently labeled GC027.

San Francisco, CA—The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus the investigational drug sitravatinib improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with pretreated metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) and the historical disease control rates compared with nivolumab alone, according to the results of a phase 1/2 clinical trial reported at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—Treatment with the novel agent MK-6482 led to promising results in a phase 1/2 clinical trial of patients with metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC). In heavily pretreated patients, the objective response rate (ORR) with single-agent MK-6482 was 24%, and a response was consistently seen across patients with favorable-, intermediate-, and poor-risk disease. These results were greeted with optimism at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

On May 29, 2020, the FDA approved ramucirumab (Cyramza; Eli Lilly) in combination with erlotinib (Tarceva) for first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21 (L858R) mutations. Ramucirumab was previously approved for several types of cancer, including, in combination with docetaxel, for metastatic NSCLC, after platinum-based chemotherapy.

On May 26, 2020, the FDA approved nivolumab (Opdivo; BMS) and ipilimumab (Yervoy; BMS) plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment of recurrent or metastatic squamous or nonsquamous non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), regardless of PD-L1 expression, and with no EGFR or ALK aberrations. On May 15, the FDA approved nivolumab plus ipilimumab as first-line treatment of metastatic NSCLC with PD-L1 ≥1% expression.

On May 29, 2020, the FDA approved the immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq; Genentech), a PD-L1 inhibitor, in combination with bevacizumab (Avastin; Genentech), a vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who have not received systemic therapy. This is the first immunotherapy regimen approved by the FDA for this type of HCC.

The COVID-19 pandemic will have far-reaching economic implications in the United States and abroad for the foreseeable future. During this session Murray Aitken, MBA, Director, IQVIA Institute, presented emerging data regarding some of the ways in which the pandemic is affecting the US economy.

Burt Zweigenhaft, PhD, D.Litt, Founder, Association for Value-Based Cancer Care, moderated a panel session in which 3 experts from the independent actuarial firm, Milliman, discussed recent data showing the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic may affect the future of healthcare.