FDA Approval Insights: Toripalimab in Recurrent/Metastatic Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Welcome to OncLive On Air^®! I’m your host today, Ashling Wahner.

OncLive On Air is a podcast from OncLive^®, which provides oncology professionals with the resources and information they need to provide the best patient care. In both digital and print formats, OncLive covers every angle of oncology practice, from new technology to treatment advances to important regulatory decisions.

In today’s episode, sponsored by Coherus, we had the pleasure of speaking with Glenn J. Hanna, MD, and Shravan Kandula, MD, about the FDA approval of toripalimab (Loqtorzi) in patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Dr Hanna is the director of the Center for Cancer Therapeutic Innovation (Early Drug Development Program), the director of the Center for Salivary and Rare Head and Neck Cancers, and a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr Kandula is a radiation oncologist at AdventHealth Medical Group Radiation Oncology at Central Florida in Orlando.

On October 27, 2023, frontline toripalimab plus gemcitabine and cisplatin received FDA approval for adult patients with recurrent or metastatic locally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer. The FDA also approved toripalimab monotherapy for adult patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose disease progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. These regulatory decisions were supported by findings from the phase 3 JUPITER-02 (NCT03581786) and phase 1/2 POLARIS-02 (NCT02915432) trials, respectively.

In JUPITER-02, toripalimab in combination with chemotherapy reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 48% vs chemotherapy alone. In POLARIS-02, toripalimab monotherapy elicited an overall response rate of 20.5%.

In our exclusive interview, Drs Hanna and Kandula discussed the significance of this approval; pivotal data from the JUPITER-02 and POLARIS-02 trials; and how the addition of toripalimab to the nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment armamentarium increases the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration.

___

That’s all we have for today! Thank you for listening to this episode of OncLive On Air, sponsored by Coherus. Check back on Mondays and Thursdays for exclusive interviews with leading experts in the oncology field.

For more updates in oncology, be sure to visit www.OncLive.com and sign up for our e-newsletters.

OncLive is also on social media. On Twitter, follow us at @OncLive. On Facebook, like us at OncLive, and follow our OncLive page on LinkedIn.

If you liked today’s episode of OncLive On Air, please consider subscribing to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many of your other favorite podcast platforms,* so you get a notification every time a new episode is posted. While you are there, please take a moment to rate us!

Thanks again for listening to OncLive On Air.

*OncLive On Air is available on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Audacy, CastBox, Deezer, iHeart, JioSaavn, Listen Notes, Player FM, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, RadioPublic, and TuneIn.