Dr. Luke on Combining an IDO Inhibitor With Nivolumab in Advanced Cancers

Jason J. Luke, MD, assistant professor of medicine, University of Chicago Medicine, discusses a study evaluating the IDO1 inhibitor BMS-986205 as a monotherapy and in combination with nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with advanced cancers during The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 32^nd Annual Meeting.

Luke explains that the IDO pathway is an important immunosuppressive pathway that is upregulated in the context of a productive interferon gamma-associated tumor microenvironment. That was original thought to be PD-L1 alone, but we are learning that most often when PD-L1 is upregulated, IDO is upregulated as well, and can act as a secondary immunologic checkpoint to slow down T cells, even if you block PD-1, he says. There is a lot of interest in combining these approaches to augment immunotherapy.