Dr Ben Tran talks to ecancer about his talk at AACR 2022: MEDI5752, a novel PD-1/CTLA-4 bi-specific checkpoint inhibitor for advanced solid tumours: First-in-human study.

He begins by explaining that MEDI5752 is a monovalent bi-specific antibody that targets both PD-1 and CTLA-4 and is designed to enhance CTLA-4 blockade on PD-1+ activated T-cells. Essentially allowing preferential inhibition of CTLA-4 on PD-1+ activated T-cells in addition to comparable inhibition of PD-1, when compared to other PD-1 inhibitors.

Dr Tran then goes on to say in total there were 86 patients, including 61 from the dose escalation phase and 25 from the dose expansion phase and the median age was 60. Around 60% of patients had less than 1% PDL-1 expression on their tumour cells, and most patients were immunotherapy-naïve.

He concludes from the preliminary data reported, it was demonstrated that doses of 500mg or higher meant that MEDI5752, as a novel PD-1 and CTLA-4 bi-specific checkpoint inhibitor, was able to result in T-cell proliferation and clonal T-cell expansion that exceeds what is achievable with standard doses of anti PD-1 and anti CTLA-4 therapy.