Treatment significantly prolongs the lives of patients with liver cancer, dual immunocombination therapy reaches the phase 3 clinical endpoint

On October 16, AstraZeneca announced that its anti-PD-L1 antibody Imfinzi, in combination with the research anti-CTLA-4 antibody tremelimumab, is in a phase 3 clinical trial for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma Reach the primary endpoint of overall survival

Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world, and approximately 900,000 patients are diagnosed each year

Imfinzi is an anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody that blocks the binding of PD-L1 to PD-1 and CD80 proteins to relieve tumor cells from inhibiting the immune response

Tremelimumab blocks the activity of CTLA-4, thereby promoting T cell activation and stimulating the immune system's immune response to cancer

This international phase 3 clinical trial included 1,324 patients with unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma

In addition to significantly prolonging the overall survival of patients, this innovative dosing regimen also showed good safety.

AstraZeneca also announced that Imfinzi monotherapy reached the standard of non-inferiority compared with the active control group and showed improved tolerability

The lead investigator of this phase 3 study, Dr.

Progress in the research and development of first-line treatments for liver cancer

In May of last year, Roche's PD-L1 inhibitor was used in combination with Avastin to obtain FDA approval for the first-line treatment of unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma

Since then, the anti-PD-1 antibody daboshu (sintilimab) jointly developed by Cinda and Eli Lilly and Company was used in combination with dayoto (bevacizumab biosimilar).

In addition, there are currently a number of combination therapies based on anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies that are being tested in phase 3 clinical trials (see the table below)

Reference materials:

[1] Imfinzi plus tremelimumab significantly improved overall survival in HIMALAYA Phase III trial in 1st-line unresectable liver cancer.

[2] Treme climbs a new mountain.