Presidential sessions at top cancer meetings typically feature practice-changing clinical trials, detailed in front of thousands of global experts packed into rooms so cavernous they merit their own ZIP codes. But last year, at the most important European oncology conference, one slot was reserved for a presentation of early results from a German biotech’s study of just 16 patients.
The primetime billing was no accident. The Phase 1 data, as oncologist Sapna Patel explained, showed that every one of the patients, all of whom had a rare eye cancer called uveal melanoma, saw their tumors shrink after receiving an experimental cell therapy — a remarkable, if preliminary, outcome. What was more, the data suggested that going after the therapy’s bull’s-eye might unlock the power of immunotherapy in other, more common cancers that had stubbornly rebuffed such efforts, like pancreatic and ovarian tumors.
“This can be taken forward in other areas of oncology,” Patel told the conference.