Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[biopharm]

Dmitry Gabrilovich : Peregrine Pharmaceuticals KOL :

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New Agents, Targets Continue to Emerge in Sarcoma, Cementing Role for Immunotherapy

Shannon Connelly
Published Online:4:27 PM, Mon

November 28, 2016

Wilky: This study is designed to sort of carry immunotherapy one step further. Immunotherapy has had some dramatic responses in sarcoma, but it doesn’t work for everyone.

One of the reasons people think immunotherapy may not be effective is that potentially there are problems getting the immune cells into the tumor. You have to have the immune cells in the right location for them to get turned on by the checkpoint inhibitors.

A lot of people, including Dmitry Gabrilovich, MD, PhD, have done a beautiful body of research showing that a protein called vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)—which most people think of as being responsible for forming new blood vessels to feed tumors—also has direct effects on shutting down the immune system in tumors.

The concept of the trial is basically to use a VEGF blocker to sort of prime the tumor environment and hopefully get immune cells into the tumor, and then use the checkpoint inhibitor to turn them on.
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http://www.targetedonc.com/news/new-agents-targets-continue-to-emerge-in-sarcoma-cementing-role-for-immunotherapy

Phosphatidylserine inhibited the production of inflammatory mediators IL-6; IL-8; vascular endothelial growth factor; and, in particular, prostaglandin E(2) in IL-1ß-stimulated RA-FLS.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23507231