Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a form of skin cancer. In the United States, about 2,500 people are diagnosed with MCC each year. The condition is treated with chemotherapy, immune therapies, and a regime of different drugs. Unfortunately, the metastatic form of the disease is still fatal for the majority of individuals. Fewer than 20% of patients with locally advanced or metastatic forms of MCC survive more than five years after diagnosis.
While the medical community has made progress in developing therapies for MCC, it’s become increasingly clear that one form of treatment will not be enough to put patients in remission. Researchers are hard at work to discover what combination of therapies will be the most effective for individuals with MCC.
A New Trial
According to CheckOrphan, NantKwest has just announced the initiation of a Phase 2 clinical trial which will investigate the combination of three different treatments for MCC patients. Participants in this trial will receive a haNK cell therapy, avelumab, and N-803.
The initiation of this combination stems from their previous Phase 2 trial which investigated an aNKTM natural killer cell therapy and N-803. This trial indicated clinically meaningful antitumor activity in three out of the seven patients.
NantKwest is hopeful that by adding avelumab to the treatment regime, response rates will improve. There is even potential that this treatment regime could be found effective for other solid tumor indications.
How it works
Basically, N-803 is a IL-15/Fc superagonist which works to enhance cancer killer cells. Both N-803 and haNK cells amplify the response of avelumab. Avelumab specifically targets a protein expressed on many cancer cells called PD-L1. It blocks this protein from binding to T-cells, increasing CD8+ T-cell immune response.
Patients in NantKwest’s new Phase 2 clinical trial will receive a combination of all three of these therapies without the addition of cytotoxic chemotherapy. All patients in the trial will be individuals who progressed on/after using a checkpoint inhibitor.
The hope, is that this combination of treatments will maximize the killing of MCC cells. At the same time it would keep patients from having to undergo chemotherapy. This in and of itself could significantly improve the quality of life of individuals living with merkel cell carcinoma.
The safety of this combination of therapies has been indicated in previous clinical trials conducted by NantKwest for other forms of cancer.
To read more information on this new clinical trial you can visit ClinicalTrials.gov or NantKwest.com.
