Physicians at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Cofactor Genomics are working to improve the ability to predict tumor response to immunotherapy in recurrent and metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
Guiding and prioritizing therapy selection is especially important given last year’s FDA approval of pembrolizumab as a first line treatment for RM-HNSCC.
The partnership is led by Ezra Cohen, chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the UCSD Moores Cancer Center. Cofactor’s recently-patented Predictive Immune Modeling technology will be used in the research.
The clinical care pathway for recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer patients relies on using underpowered, antiquated technologies for treatment decisions. New tools that provide physicians with higher confidence in therapy selection are needed.
The terms of the partnership include providing Cofactor Genomics with access to patient specimens and clinical metadata, a resource well-curated by the team at UCSD. The data generated in this collaboration will further expand clinical evidence presented earlier this year by Washington University physicians, where Cofactor’s technology showed superiority over the incumbent PD-L1 IHC assay in predicting responders to therapy.
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