PD-1

[Merck] Merck announced that the Phase III KEYNOTE-394 trial investigating KEYTRUDA, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, in Asian patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma previously treated with sorafenib met its primary endpoint of overall survival.

[Communications Biology] The authors showed the importance of immune tolerance for idiosyncratic drug toxicity (IDT) onset and determine whether it was susceptible to a common IDT, HLA-B*57:01-mediated abacavir-induced hypersensitivity, using CD4+ T cell-depleted programmed death-1 receptor-deficient HLA-B*57:01 transgenic mice

[Anti-Cancer Drugs] Subcutaneous A549 lung cancer and murine Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) models were constructed, which were further intravenously injected with platinum-based drugs or concomitant administrated with anti-PD-1 antibody and or anti-NKG2D antibody.

[Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology] Scientists discuss the translational potential and clinical development of agents targeting both co-stimulatory and co-inhibitory T cell receptors.

[Tempest Therapeutics, Inc.] Tempest Therapeutics, Inc. announced the first patient has been dosed in the global randomized Phase Ib/II clinical study evaluating TPST-1120, Tempest’s small molecule PPAR⍺ antagonist, in combination with the standard-of-care regimen of atezolizumab and bevacizumab in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma.

[Nature Communications] The authors demonstrated that 9p21 loss confers “cold” tumor-immune phenotypes, characterized by reduced abundance of tumor-infiltrating leukocytes, particularly, T/B/NK cells, altered spatial TILs patterns, diminished immune cell trafficking/activation, decreased rate of PD-L1 positivity, along with activation of immunosuppressive signaling.