A year and a half after Agenus withdrew its accelerated approval request for cervical cancer drug balstilimab, the biotech has provided new combo data in ovarian cancer.

In heavily pretreated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have microsatellite-stable tumors, the novel combination of the monoclonal antibodies botensilimab and balstilimab showed clinical activity, producing durable responses and an estimated 63% overall survival rate at 12 months, according to a phase Ia/IIb study reported at the 2023 ASCO GI Cancers Symposium.

Colorectal cancer is the 3rd most common cancer among men and women of all ages in the US and is on track to be the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50 by 2030. The alarming rise of colorectal cancer in people younger than 50 prompted the US Preventive Services Task Force to lower the colorectal cancer screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021.

In season 4, episode 1 of Targeted Talks, Benjamin L. Schlechter, MD, senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, discuses new studies in the gastrointestinal cancers space. Schlechter explains how these studies can inform future research.

Benjamin Schlechter, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, presents expanded data from the microsatellite stable colorectal (MSS-CRC) expansion cohort of the Phase I study of botensilimab (NCT03860272), a multifunctional Fc-enhanced anti-CTLA-4, in combination with balstilimab, an anti-PD1 antibody, in metastatic heavily pre-treated MSS CRC. Efficacy was especially higher in patients without liver metastases, which form a significant minority of patients with MSS-CRC. This interview took place at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2023 Gastrointestinal Cancers (GI) Symposium in San Francisco, CA.