ASCO 2018 | Patient selection is crucial for vaccine therapy success in kidney cancer

So the ADAPT trial is a large, randomized, prospective trial in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma who’ve undergone surgical resection of their primary tumor, have known metastatic disease, and are treated with either an autologous vaccine that is prepared from the tumor with sunitinib, versus sunitinib itself. So the results thus far are that the two groups we are evaluating their progression free and overall survival, we are demonstrating that we have biomarkers that may identify people more likely to benefit, and we’re awaiting the overall survival outcomes of the flora final report. I think the key is to understand whether tumor antigens that are created from a patient’s own tumor can support and stimulate the immune system when combined with standard care therapy such as sunitinib, or in the future, immuno-oncology agents. I think that in light of what was just presented at ASCO, the CARMENA trial demonstrated that nephrectomy followed by sunitinib was no different and not inferior to sunitinib by itself in a similar population of patients. In our trial we’re seeing survival in approaching three years significantly different than the CARMENA trial, suggesting that selection of patients is a critical element when thinking about vaccine therapy.