A trio of special Clinical Trials Plenary sessions during the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021 will offer important insights into some of the most innovative work taking place in cancer research.

The plenaries will feature results from 13 trials in many different areas of research.

“Being able to highlight so many potentially practice-changing studies at the Annual Meeting is quite meaningful and demonstrates how translational the meeting and the field of cancer research has become,” said Julie R. Brahmer, MD, MSc, co-chair of the Annual Meeting Clinical Trials Committee.

Brahmer and fellow committee co-chair Manuel Hidalgo, MD, PhD, will chair the session, titled Phase III Clinical Trials: Dedicated to the Memory of José Baselga, which starts at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Saturday, April 10.

Also on April 10, Naoko Takebe, MD, PhD, National Cancer Institute, will chair the session, Immuno-oncology and Cell Therapy Trials , which starts at 3:30 p.m. EDT. That session will discuss five studies.

The final Clinical Trials Plenary session takes place Sunday, April 11, and spotlights Targeted Therapy and Ovarian Cancer Trials. Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, will serve as chair for this session, which starts at 2 p.m.

The abstracts for these plenaries are now available in the online meeting planner, and registered attendees can watch these sessions on demand through June 21, 2021.

Saturday, April 10

Phase III Clinical Trials: Dedicated to the Memory of José Baselga

11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EDT

CHRONOS-3: Randomized Phase III study of copanlisib plus rituximab vs rituximab/placebo in relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (iNHL)
Presenter: Matthew J. Matasar, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Phase 3 randomized trial comparing tebentafusp with investigator’s choice in first line metastatic uveal melanoma
Presenter: Jessica C. Hassel, MD, University Hospital Heidelberg

Nivolumab (NIVO) + platinum-doublet chemotherapy (chemo) vs chemo as neoadjuvant treatment (tx) for resectable (IB-IIIA) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the phase 3 CheckMate 816 trial
Presenter: Patrick M. Forde, MBBCh, Johns Hopkins University

Adjuvant therapy with nivolumab (NIVO) combined with ipilimumab (IPI) vs NIVO alone in patients (pts) with resected stage IIIB-D/IV melanoma (CheckMate 915)
Presenter: Georgina V. Long, AO, BSc, PhD, MBBS, Melanoma Institute Australia, University of Sydney, and Royal North Shore and Mater Hospitals

Immuno-oncology and Cell Therapy Trials

3:30 – 5:30 p.m. EDT

T cell inflammation in the tumor microenvironment after agonist CD40 antibody: Clinical and translational results of a neoadjuvant clinical trial
Presenter: Katelyn T. Byrne, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine Abramson Cancer Center

Phase 2 study of pembrolizumab (pembro) for locally advanced (LA) or recurrent/metastatic (R/M) cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC): KEYNOTE-629
Presenter: Brett G.M. Hughes, MSci, MBBS, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and University of Queensland

CD19/CD20 bispecific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) in naïve/memory T-cells for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphomas
Presenter: Sanaz Noelle Ghafouri, MD ,Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, University of California Los Angeles

Lifileucel (LN-144), a cryopreserved autologous tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy in patients with advanced (unresectable or metastatic) melanoma: durable duration of response at 28 month follow up
Presenter: Jason Alan Chesney, MD, PhD, James Graham Brown Cancer Center, University of Louisville

IMbrave150: Updated efficacy and safety by risk status in patients (pts) receiving atezolizumab (atezo) + bevacizumab (bev) vs sorafenib (sor) as first-line treatment for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
Presenter: Richard S. Finn, Richard S. Finn, MD, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Sunday, April 11

Targeted Therapy and Ovarian Cancer Trials

2 – 3:45 p.m. EDT

Primary results of phase 2 FOENIX-CCA2: the irreversible FGFR1-4 inhibitor futibatinib in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA) with FGFR2 fusions/rearrangements
Presenter: Lipika Goyal, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center

Efficacy and safety of selpercatinib in RET fusion-positive cancers other than lung or thyroid cancers
Presenter: Vivek Subbiah, MD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Safety/tolerability and preliminary antitumor activity of sitravatinib plus tislelizumab in patients with advanced platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC)
Presenter: Jeffrey Goh, MBBS, ICON Cancer Centre

TRX-E-002-1 in treatment-refractory ovarian cancer: Final phase 1 study results from the dose-escalation and dose-expansion cohorts
Presenter: Jermaine Coward, MBBS, PhD, ICON Cancer Centre