Press conference moderator, Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, noted, that her center participated in the single-arm trial of mosunetuzumab. “We witnessed first-hand the tremendous capacity bispecific antibodies have to make a real difference in relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma. As in many lymphomas, this is an evolving treatment paradigm.”

Dr. Sehn continued: “Many of us expect that bispecific antibodies will make their way into the treatment algorithm for follicular lymphoma. Currently, treatment of follicular lymphoma relies on chemotherapy in the first line, and there is no real standard worldwide for second-line treatment. We usually hit harder with more chemotherapy. We are likely to see a shift to nonchemotherapy approaches. We have seen this already in other cancers.”

“With this efficacy of mosunetuzumab, I have no doubt that ongoing trials will show the same paradigm shift for follicular lymphoma and rely on nonchemotherapy approaches in the future. For someone who has spent her career giving chemotherapy for follicular lymphoma, this new era of therapy is so exciting,” Dr. Sehn commented. 

DISCLOSURE: Dr. Sehn has received research funding from Teva and Roche/Genentech; and has served as a consultant to Novartis Genmab, Debiopharm, Teva, Roche/Genentech, AbbVie, Acerta, Amgen, Apobiologix, AstraZeneca, Celgene, Gilead, Incyte, Janssen, Kite, Karyopharm Therapeutics, Lundbeck, Merck, MorphoSys, Sandoz, Seattle Genetics, Takeda, TG Therapeutics, and Verastem.