Not to be confused with a Sitz bath, a SITC bath refers to full immersion in the science of immunotherapy that occurred at the 2023 SITC annual meeting in San Diego, California.
The trio of Dr. Anthony P. Conley from MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Drs. Tony Reid, and Christopher Larson from EpicentRx were present to open the spigots on the clinical data with AdAPT-001. This is an oncolytic adenovirus that expresses a transforming growth-factor-beta (TGF-β) trap to neutralize the immunosuppressive and profibrotic cytokine, TGF-β.
In the Phase 1/2 clinical trial called ‘BETA PRIME’ (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04673942), the safety profile of AdAPT-001 was favorable with no dose limiting toxicities or related serious adverse events (SAEs) both alone and in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor. Also favorable was the demonstration of clinical activity that included several partial responses. One of them involved an angiosarcoma patient with lesions that covered his face. Following treatment with AdAPT-001, most of the lesions clinically regressed, and his before and after images received a lot of attention at the conference.
Overall, the SITC/AdAPT-001 knowledge ‘bath’ was very well received. Several audience members left with the impression that AdAPT-001, as a new-to-the-scene immunotherapeutic agent, may finally make refractory and hard-to-manage tumors like sarcomas more treatable.
