IO Combos By The Numbers

Cancer immunotherapy has reshaped the oncology space. The drugs, which block a key mechanism among tumors that allows them to escape the attack of the immune system, have achieved long-lasting benefits in some patients, and activities across a broad array of tumor types. For all the good news, the drugs help only a small percentage of patients. Over the past five years, that wide applicability and frustratingly limited response has driven pharma companies to cast a wide research net in search of drug combinations that could produce a response in patients who fail monotherapies. (See Exhibit 1.)

“The obvious question is, 'are there approaches which can augment a response or excite a response in a patient who was destined not to respond?'” says Roy Baynes, MD, PhD,...