Oncology Frontier: Please introduce yourself, including your name, profession and where are you from?
Dr. Drilon: I am Alex Drilon, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Oncology Frontier: Please share your impressions of the 2023 WCLC. The 2023 WCLC has released the results of a number of thoracic cancer studies，which studies are you most interested in?
Dr. Drilon: I think the most obvious answer is the data we saw for osimertinib and chemotherapy, showing us that this is potentially a standard for patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer. But beyond that, I think the flurry of other data presented for targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and also the antibody drug conjugates shows that lung cancer research is really alive and well.
Oncology Frontier: What's new in MET positive lung cancers at 2023 WCLC? Could you give us a brief introduction?
Dr. Drilon: At our MET (mesenchymal epithelial transition) session today, we saw really fantastic presentations for current drugs, like savolitinib in China. Also recently, we saw the conditional approval of glumetinib. But we heard that beyond that, other drugs like tepotinib, for example, and the large molecules, like amivantamab, which showed activity in this population. It means we have newer options for patients beyond the TKIs.
Oncology Frontier: Please talk about the ADC studies showed by 2023 WCLC?
Dr. Drilon: In general, the ADC wave of therapy is pretty impressive - the fact that we can ignore genomic heterogeneity in driver-positive cancers, or even for driver-negative cancers that express the protein. There are many of these that have shown activity already. We have heard of HER3, MET, TROP2, CEACAM and many others, even more targets than we ever had in the past, that have been shown to be promising. I don't know that I have a favorite, but I think I am very enthusiastic about these drugs.