Katherine C. Fuh, MD, PhD, on Ovarian Cancer: New Data on Batiraxcept and Paclitaxel
2024 ASCO Annual Meeting
Katherine C. Fuh, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discusses phase III findings of the AXLerate-OC trial, showing that batiraxcept with paclitaxel compared to paclitaxel alone improved progression-free and overall survival in patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer whose tumors were AXL-high in an exploratory analysis (LBA5515).
Transcript
Disclaimer: This video transcript has not been proofread or edited and may contain errors.
So most ovarian cancers will become treatment resistant, in particular platinum resistant. We identified AXL receptor tyrosine kinase that's actually expressed in these platinum-resistant ovarian cancers. A targeted therapy was developed named batiraxcept or AVB-500, which actually is a fusion protein that targets GAS6's ligand. So instead of the GAS6 ligand binding to the membrane AXL receptor, this batiraxcept will bind to that GAS6 ligand so that receptor on the tumor will never be activated.
So a phase three trial that we presented talked about GOG-3059 or ENGOT OV-66, AXLerate-OC. This really was focusing on the question, if we give our patients who have platinum-resistant ovarian cancer weekly paclitaxel, which is the standard of care, compared to weekly paclitaxel with batiraxcept, would they actually improve in terms of progression-free survival as a primary endpoint and overall survival as a secondary? We also did perform exploratory endpoints looking at the expression of our tumors for AXL as well as GAS6 and then other exploratory blood markers like serum [inaudible 00:01:15] and GAS6 ratio.
Our findings did show that there was similar progression-free survival between those patients who received the standard of care weekly paclitaxel compared to those with batiraxcept with weekly paclitaxel in both progression-free survival and overall survival, about 5 months for PFS and 14 months for OS. When we actually did the exploratory analysis looking at the AXL-high tumors, we did see a difference for those patients who actually had high AXL in their tumor, which is about 80% intensity. They actually benefited from the receiving batiraxcept and paclitaxel compared to paclitaxel alone. We saw this both in progression-free survival and overall survival.
So this really leads us to ask the next questions in terms of, can we actually develop perhaps this biomarker for AXL? Can we actually target this biomarker and use this biomarker targeted therapy in the future by using this batiraxcept or another AXL inhibitor in combination with paclitaxel for our patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer? So in the future, we would like to see if those patients with high-AXL tumors could actually benefit from an AXL inhibitor in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and really utilize this AXL expression to help focus in on the patients who actually might not benefit from standard of care and may actually benefit from a combination with the AXL inhibitor.
The ASCO Post Staff
Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, Université Paris-Saclay, discusses phase III findings showing that high baseline serum KIM-1 levels were associated with poorer prognosis but improved clinical outcomes with atezolizumab vs placebo in patients with renal cell carcinoma at increased risk of recurrence after resection. Increased post-treatment KIM-1 levels were found to be associated with worse disease-free survival (Abstract 4506).
The ASCO Post Staff
Peter Riedell, MD, of The University of Chicago, discusses phase III results on the use of tucidinostat plus R-CHOP in patients with previously untreated diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) with double expression of MYC and BCL2. The regimen appeared to improve event-free survival and complete response rates vs R-CHOP in the front-line setting. As this is an interim analysis, longer-term follow-up will be needed to better understand its impact, says Dr. Riedell.
The ASCO Post Staff
Efrat Dotan, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses results from the phase II EA2186 trial, the first prospective study aiming to define the optimal treatment approach for vulnerable older adults with newly diagnosed metastatic pancreatic cancer (Abstract 4003).
The ASCO Post Staff
Sherene Loi, MD, PhD, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses a circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis from a cohort of patients with early-stage breast cancer who were enrolled in the monarchE trial. This large cohort was studied to look at the usefulness of a personalized tumor-informed assay for ctDNA detection in early stage high-risk patients (LBA507).
The ASCO Post Staff
Jonathan E. Rosenberg, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute and the University of London, discuss phase III findings from two studies: the first, investigating enfortumab vedotin-ejfv and pembrolizumab vs platinum-based chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer; and the second, looking at nivolumab plus gemcitabine and cisplatin vs gemcitabine and cisplatin alone in patients with lymph node–only metastatic disease enrolled in the CheckMate 901 trial (Abstracts 4581 and 4565).