Dr. Sabari on Biomarkers of Response to Immunotherapy in Advanced NSCLC

Joshua K. Sabari, MD, assistant professor, Department of Medicine, NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses the need for additional biomarkers of response to immunotherapy in driver-negative advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

One of the biggest challenges in the immunotherapeutics world is the lack of robust biomarkers of response, says Sabari. Currently, high PD-L1 expression is used as a predictive biomarker of response to immunotherapy.

Although tumor mutational burden (TMB) was thought to be a potential biomarker in this space, data from the CheckMate-227 trial indicated that this was more of a prognostic marker, says Sabari.

A number of companies are currently looking into predictive signatures, such as the T-effector gene with atezolizumab (Tecentriq), while others are assessing conglomerate biomarkers. To date, there is no prospective data supporting additional biomarkers outside of PD-L1, Sabari concludes.