Following the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, Alban Bessede, CEO of Explicyte, shares his key takeaways from this year’s edition, including major advances in antibody-drug conjugates, targeted therapies, cancer vaccines, and biomarker-driven immuno-oncology strategies.
ASCO has just ended. What are your impressions of this year’s meeting?
It is always a great pleasure to attend the ASCO Annual Meeting. This year again, the congress highlighted innovative therapeutic approaches that are helping shape the future of cancer care.
Beyond the scientific program, ASCO remains a unique opportunity to exchange with colleagues, partners, and friends, and to discover new inspiring ideas in oncology and translational research.
What research results did Explicyte present?
We presented data identifying TROP2 overexpression as a strong predictor of resistance to immunotherapy, but not to chemotherapy, in patients with advanced lung cancer.
Importantly, these findings were confirmed at the protein level, supporting the rationale for a biomarker-driven strategy combining anti-TROP2 antibody-drug conjugates with immunotherapy.
We were also pleased to see several of our collaborative research efforts presented by partners, including Institut Bergonié and Brenus Pharma.
Which breakthroughs particularly caught your attention?
Two clinical studies particularly impressed me this year.
The first one focused on trastuzumab deruxtecan, a novel antibody-drug conjugate evaluated in patients with different tumor types expressing HER2. The study showed significant clinical benefit across a broad range of advanced cancers, especially in patients with HER2-positive or HER2-low expression profiles.
The second study evaluated vorasidenib in patients with grade 2 glioma carrying an IDH mutation. Compared with placebo, vorasidenib significantly improved progression-free survival. These results may open the way to a new targeted therapeutic option for this disease, which often affects young patients.
June is Immunotherapy Awareness Month. Were there any immunotherapy results that stood out?
One result that caught my attention was a clinical trial evaluating a French vaccine candidate in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab.
This strategy aimed to induce an immune response against HPV antigens in patients with HPV16-positive anogenital cancer. In most cases, the induction of a specific immune response was associated with clinical response.
I am looking forward to seeing the final results of this phase II study.
What are the major challenges facing clinical oncology today?
Precision medicine will be central to the future of oncology, because cancers are highly heterogeneous, even within the same indication.
It is therefore essential to study patient samples in depth to better understand the mechanisms involved in cancer progression and resistance to current therapies.
This knowledge will support the development of more appropriate therapeutic strategies and the implementation of biomarker-driven clinical trials.
Alban Bessede, CEO of Explicyte