Dr. Pegram on Promising Novel Agents in HER2+ Metastatic Breast Cancer

Mark D. Pegram, MD, Susy Yuan-Huey Hung Professor, co-director, Stanford’s Molecular Therapeutics Program, director, Breast Cancer Oncology Program, Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, discusses promising novel agents in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

The concept of eventually replacing trastuzumab (Herceptin) with an engineered and modified antibody is very intriguing, Pegram says. If ongoing work with FC-engineered antibodies comes to fruition, they could very well replace the gold standard. Ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) garnered much attention at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, showing promise in the adjuvant setting.

Moreover, second-generation antibody-drug conjugates look promising, Pegram adds. Trastuzumab deruxtecan (DS-8201) has shown impressive activity against HER2-positive tumors across multiple disease subtypes. The compound SYD985 has also been encouraging. Notably, both of these compounds also show benefit in HER2-low expressing tumors, in cases that would have otherwise been considered HER2-negative.