Brian Van Tine, MD, PhD, on Further Research With Cell Therapy in Synovial Sarcoma

“There's a wonderful parallel trial to SPEARHEAD-1 called SURPASS where we're actually looking at MAGE-A4 treatments within solid tumors. And I think one of the more interesting things that's happened in the last year is that sequencing platforms such as Tempus and Caris are now identifying patients’ HLA and are helping now to identify more solid tumors that would have these antigens expressed so that we can actually go after them and change our ability to actually identify patients.”

Afamitresgene autoleucel (afami-cel; AdaptImmune) T-cell receptor SPEAR T-cell therapy has continued to demonstrate a survival benefit in patients with advanced synovial sarcoma treated in the phase 2 SPEARHEAD-1 trial (NCT04044768). Updated survival data from the trial were presented by Brian Van Tine, MD, PhD, professor, medicine and pediatrics, Washington University in St. Louis at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2023 Annual Meeting, held June 2-6, in Chicago, Illinois.

CGTLive™’s sister site, OncLive™, spoke with Van Tine to learn more about his investigations into cell therapy for synovial sarcoma and challenges that remain in the space, such as identifying appropriate patients to receive these treatments and to be enrolled in clinical trials. He also touched on the SURPASS clinical trial (NCT04044859) that is also evaluating cell therapy for MAGE-A4–expressing tumors, similarly to the SPEARHEAD-1 trial. He stressed more work that needs to be done in the field, such as working towards targeting other HLA types to open up accessibility and clinical trials to more patients.

Click here for more coverage of ASCO 2023.

REFERENCE

Van Tine BA, Ganjoo KN, Blay JY, et al. The SPEARHEAD-1 trial of afamitresgeneautoleucel (afami-cel [formerly ADP-A2M4]): Analysis of overall survival in advanced synovial sarcoma. Presented at: ASCO 2023 Annual Meeting; June 2-6; Chicago, Illinois. Poster #497