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Researchers hail new cancer treatment: Unlocking the body's immune system

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/health/immunotherapy-cancer-treatment-advance/

(CNN)Researchers meeting in Chicago are hailing what they believe may be a potent new weapon in the fight against cancer: the body's own immune system.

An international study found that a combination of two drugs that helped allow the immune system to fight the cancer -- ipilimumab and nivolumab -- stopped the deadly skin cancer melanoma from advancing for nearly a year in 58% of the cases.

Melanoma, though a skin cancer, can spread to the lungs, liver, bone, lymph nodes and brain. The study was designed and led by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

"But the results also warrant caution -- the nivolumab and ipilimumab combination used in this study came with greater side effects, which might offset its benefits for some patients. Physicians and patients will need to weigh these considerations carefully," O'Day said.

In the study, 36% of the patients receiving the two-drug combination had to stop the therapy due to side effects. Both drugs are made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, the sponsors of the study.

But Dr. James Larkin, the lead author of the melanoma study, called the results a game changer.

"We've seen these drugs working in a wide range of cancers, and I think we are at the beginning of a new era in treating cancer," Larkin told The Telegraph, a British newspaper.

CEO STEVE KING
Whether as chemotherapy, radiation or immune-oncology agents, most patients are still not getting the level of anti-tumor activity that is needed to have a significant impact. We believe bavituximab has the potential to make a difference in patient outcome when used in combination with all of these therapeutic approaches to treating patients.

JOE SHAN
To that end, we are planning to initiate an open label multi-center randomized Phase2 trial of nivolumab (which is marketed as Opdivo) vs. nivolumab+bavituximab in patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC who have not received a prior PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor.

Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Enters Into Research Collaboration to Investigate Novel PS-Targeting Immunotherapy Combinations

"A key focus of the Wolchok Lab's research is studying novel immunotherapy combinations that work together to enable the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer. This collaboration will allow us to focus on the role and contribution of PS blockade therapy in determining which combination of the current and next generation of immune modulators is likely to increase the extent and amplitude of anti-tumor response. This important pre-clinical and translational work will potentially guide the design of the next generation of clinical studies with bavituximab," said Dr. Merghoub.