In the past actually we only had cytotoxic chemotherapy for gastric cancer and about ten years ago we started to explore the molecular targeted agents in gastric cancer and we had a couple of successes in gastric cancer, including trastuzumab for HER2 positive disease and also ramucirumab for second line treatment. Now we are exploring immunotherapy very actively in gastric cancer and it is very clear that the immunotherapy will become a part of clinical practise for the management of patients with advanced gastric cancer.

Is there the prospect of any biomarkers?

We don’t have any biomarkers for patient selection for antiangiogenic therapy at this time and there have been a lot of efforts to find predictive biomarkers for anti-angiogenesis. However, we have not succeeded in that regard so I guess that in the near future we will not get any useful biomarker in the near future.

In this case is PD-L1 a good biomarker?

I believe that PD-L1 expression is a good biomarker for immunotherapy in gastric cancer at this time although still we need to standardise the assay and cut-off value.

What are the current phase I drugs you are looking at?

We are testing several combinations including PD-1 or PD-L1 antibodies in gastric cancer. Also we are doing phase III trials to get a conclusion about the role of PD-1 or PD-L1 antibodies.

Are you optimistic about the future treatments?

Yes, actually last week there was a press release saying that UNO study has a positive result in the third line setting for gastric cancer. So I’m very, very optimistic about it.