Expert Reviews Potential Novel Treatment Options in Ovarian Cancer

Following the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, Ritu Salani, MD, discussed two potential treatments for patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, including targeted agent upifitamab rilsodotin (XMT-1536) and autologous tumor vaccine gemogenovatucel-T (Virgil), that warrant future research.

Salani, the Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship Director at University of California Los Angeles Health and the Gynecologic Oncology editorial board member for the journal ONCOLOGY^®, highlighted upifitamab rilsodotin’s capability of targeting NaPi2b, a target commonly expressed in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. According to Salani, upifitamab rilsodotin may also benefit patients as maintenance therapy following treatment for platinum-sensitive disease.

Salani also spoke about gemogenovatucel-T, which she described as being a potential maintenance therapy option for patients with homologous repair proficient (HRP) disease that may not require PARP inhibitors as supplemental treatment.

Transcript:

For ovarian cancer, we continue to have struggles in the platinum-resistance setting. Mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx (Elahere) is going to help advance that field. But there are other targets that are being explored. This includes things like upifitamab rilsodotin, which is an antibody-drug conjugate targeting NaPi2b. [For] patients who have high expression of this target, which is not uncommon in ovarian cancer—even probably around the 50% range—there's a targeted agent. This might also provide another avenue of treatment both in the platinum-resistance setting and as a maintenance option after platinum-sensitive treatment.

The other ideas that are kind of out there are looking at HRP maintenance in patients without using a PARP inhibitor. We know PARP inhibitors have some benefit, but it has not been that ‘wow factor’ that we're all looking for. [Gemogenovatucel-T], which is looking at the patient's own tumor and looking at reinfusing it [via] an agent [as part of a] maintenance strategy, is something that's out there. And this is really exciting. In preliminary data, it looks like the patients with HRP [disease] have the best benefit. We're looking forward to getting more information about that.