Dr. Burris on the Potential for Novel Checkpoint Inhibitor Combinations in Oncology

Howard A. “Skip” Burris, III, MD, FASCO, FACP, chief medical officer and president of Clinical Operations at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and a 2014 Giant of Cancer Care^® in Drug Development, discusses the potential of novel combination strategies with checkpoint inhibitors in oncology.

Ongoing trials are evaluating PD-L1 inhibitors in combination with novel therapies, such as TIGIT- and LAG-3–directed antibodies, says Burris. Early data have shown improved activity with combination regimens compared with single-agent checkpoint inhibitors. Additionally, these novel therapies appear to improve activity versus single-agent treatment in patients who have received prior checkpoint inhibitors, Burris explains.

Moreover, these benefits have been observed across a wide section of oncology, including lung cancer, colon cancer, and melanoma, says Burris. As such, the potentially diverse application of these therapies is an exciting research effort to keep an eye on in 2021.