At the recent European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria, Dr Nora Disis  (pictured right) kindly spoke with BSB about her clinical research with avelumab (Merck KGaA/Pfizer), a cancer immunotherapy that targets the programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1).

Dr Disis (@DrNDisis) who is Editor in Chief of JAMA Oncology (@JAMAOnc) and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington, presented a poster at the meeting (Abstract #2749) with updated data for the phase 1b trial of avelumab in relapsed/refractory ovarian cancer.

In addition to reviewing the results with avelumab and in particular, the biomarker results for PD-L1 and CA125 expression, Dr Disis talks about why avelumab is different from other anti PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors.

This is particularly important when considering a competitive and crowded marketplace where path-to-market strategies become more focused and critical.  Certainly some of the issues discussed in detail present a nice case study of some the challenges facing pharma companies when you are 5th, 6th or more to market.  Differentiation becomes a key driver that needs to be considered and incorporated into the clinical development plan.

She also talked candidly with BSB about some of the challenges and opportunities for checkpoint inhibitors and the PD-L1 in ovarian cancer, a disease where there is a high unmet medical need for effective new therapies.

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