RE:RE:New Press Release - Theratechnologies to Present Preclinical Data at AACR Demonstrating Synergy Between TH1902 and Anti-PD-L1 Immunotherapy in Cold Tumor Model Some info on "Cold Tumors", basically resistant to immunotherapies which already have low response rates.
Also info on PD-L1 in "cold tumors". I didn't list sources but they are two papers you can lookup by searching the text.
Maybe they get lucky and a PD-L1 drug company looks to trial the combo to hit cold tumors they currently fail on. Once again, take it all with a grain of salt given the preclinical/clinical gap they are trying to surmount.
"Therapeutic monoclonal antibodies targeting immune checkpoints (ICPs) have changed the treatment landscape of many tumors. However, response rate remains relatively low in most cases. A major factor involved in initial resistance to ICP inhibitors is the lack or paucity of tumor T cell infiltration, characterizing the so-called "cold tumors." In this review, we describe the main mechanisms involved in the absence of T cell infiltration, including lack of tumor antigens, defect in antigen presentation, absence of T cell activation and deficit of homing into the tumor bed. We discuss then the different therapeutic approaches that could turn cold into hot tumors."
"Results from the clinical trials for application of the PD-L1/PD-1 in targeting tumors with an inflamed TME were promising, examples of which are melanoma [3], non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) [4], bladder cancer [5], gastric cancer [6], and uterine cancer [7]. Such tumors are placed in the category of Hot immune contexture, represent neoantigens as a signal for attack by anti-tumor immune cells. For cold cancers, however, there is a different story. Cold cancers have a non-inflamed TME, and tumoral cells are not expressing neoantigens sufficient to be distinguished by immune effector system, thus they tend to evade from anti-tumor immune cells. From what is expected, cold cancers have lower tendencies to bear an acceptable response to such therapy. Colorectal cancer (CRC), and pancreatic, prostate, ovarian and breast cancers are generally placed in the category of Cold cancers [1,8]. In this review, we are aimed at discussing responses from cold cancers to the PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy used either as a single-agent therapy or in combination with other therapies, comparing the outcomes with that for standard therapies and proposing strategies to improve the efficacy of therapy in low responsive patients. In this review, the data from clinical trials were addressed for interpretation