Clinical trials

The primary treatment option for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) adenocarcinoma (ADC) with activating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation is EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). After a certain period of treatment with EGFR TKI, acquired resistance emerges most frequently with a secondary mutation, p.T790M (36-50%), followed by MET amplification (10-19%). Interestingly, up to 3-5% of patients experience histological transformation into small cell lung cancer (SCLC). As an underlying mechanism, ADC with a predisposed clonally inactivated Rb and p53 mutation and APOBEC mutation signature is known to be associated with SCLC transformation. The transformed SCLC harbors similar morphological and immunohistochemical (IHC) characteristics as those observed in de novo SCLC, including high expression of chromogranin and synaptophysin. However, little is known about the clinical outcomes of transformed SCLC, with limited studies arguing that their outcomes are similar to those of de novo SCLC, where the median overall survival is approximately 9 to 10 months after the transformation. As the first line treatment of SCLC, atezolizumab or durvalumab with four cycles of conventional chemotherapy followed by maintenance therapy demonstrated prolonged overall survival (OS) and placed as the standard treatment option. However, median progression-free survival (PFS) of both study was only 5.2 months and 5.1 months, despite the objective response rate showing 60.2% and 79%. This finding suggest further development of maintenance treatment strategy to prolonged longer duration of response to the treatment. In addition to the conventional treatment, Tarlatamab (AMG757), bispecific t-cell engager (BiTE), designed to engage DLL3 on SCLC and CD3 on T-cell has been tested in SCLC. DLL3 is expressed in more than 80% of patients with SCLC, regardless of disease stage and researched for the potential target protein for the antibody based treatment in SCLC. By targeting DLL3 using Tarlatamab, engagement of tumor antigen and CD3 lead to cytotoxic synapse formation, triggering the release of proinflammatory cytokines, perforin, and granzymes from activated T-cells, potentially resulting apoptosis. The first clinical outcome of Tarlatamab was reported from the DeLLphi-300 study, phase 1 dose exploration study, showing confirmed partial response in 23% of the heavily treated SCLC and 37% of the patients showed decrease in tumor burden. Median duration of response was 13.0 months (95% confidential interval CI: 6.2 - 14.9 months), median PFS of 3.7 months and median OS was 13.2 months. In the treatment naïve SCLC, DeLLphi-303 study, phase 1b study combining tarlatamab + PD-L1 inhibitor + carboplatin and etoposide, is ongoing to evaluate the clinical efficacy in the front line setting which include only histologically confirmed extensive disease SCLC population (NCT05361395). Based on previous clinical and pre-clinical outcomes, showing similar disease characteristics between transformed SCLC from the adenocarcinoma who treated with EGFR TKI with de novo SCLC, this study is designed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of tarlatamab with currently standard treatment in transformed SCLC.

As the 3rd generation, EGFR TKI has become a standard treatment option for the 1st line therapy in EGFR mutated patients, the necessity for evaluating resistant mechanism to determine the matched subsequent therapeutic option has been highlighted. From the 1st line Osimertinib treatment, the heterogenous resistance mechanism has been observed showing most commonly by MET amplification (7-15%) followed by additional on-target EGFR mutation (6-10%), BRAF, PI3KCA, KRAS, HER2 mutation (13-14%) and still 40 to 50% remain unknown for the mechanism. (A. Leonetti et al.British Journal of Cancer(2019)) Based on the observation showing the MET amplification as the most common resistance mechanism to the 3rd generation EGFR TKI treatment, the "TATTON" study, a multi-arm, phase IB trial, demonstrated early clinical data of Osimertinib in combined with savolitinib. Among the patients, c-MET amplified patients who were previously treated with 3rd generation EGFR TKI, a combination of Osimertinib and savolitinib, showed an objective response rate of 33% and median PFS of 5.5 months. (G. Oxnard et al. Annals of Oncology(2020)) The clinical efficacy of Osimertinib with savolitinib in MET overexpressed or amplification patients are reported from the global phase II, "SAVANNAH" study. The preliminary results from the SAVANNAH trial showed that Osimertinib plus savolitinib demonstrated an objective response rate of 49% in patients with a high level of MET overexpression and/or amplification, defined as IHC90+ and/or FISH 10+, whose disease progressed on treatment with Osimertinib. The highest ORR was observed in patients with a high level of MET who were not treated with prior chemotherapy (52%). In patients whose tumors did not show a high level of MET, the ORR was 9% (MJ Ahn, WCLC, 2022). There are ongoing global Phase III SAFFRON study to validate the outcome from SAVANNAH study. It has been reported that around 62% of tumor in Osimertinib progressed sample has MET overexpression and/or amplification, and more than one-third (34%) met the defined high MET level cut-off. As Lazertinib is about to be approved as the treatment option for the treatment naïve EGFR mutated NSCLC, it is also becoming important to develop a further treatment plan based on the MET amplification status. In this study, the investigators designed a phase II study based on the MET amplification status to evaluate the clinical efficacy of Lazertinib + tepotinib.

In this study, the investigators obtain wearable disease based biomarkers from patients diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, and simultaneously measure patient self-reported adverse events through an app to evaluate chemotherapy completion rates, emergency room visits, and frequency of CTCAE adverse events. The investigators will develop an artificial intelligence-based algorism that can predict patients' side effects based on biomarkers alone.