Research directed by Johns Hopkins showed that for patients with operable pancreatic cancers, a three-pronged combination immunotherapy treatment—consisting of the pancreatic cancer vaccine GVAX, the immune checkpoint therapy nivolumab and urelemab, an anti-CD137 agonist antibody treatment—is safe, increases the amount of cancer-killing immune system T cells in the tumors, and appears effective when given two weeks prior to cancer-removal surgery. A description of the work was published in Nature Communications.
University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center received a $50 million gift from Richard and Susan Rogel for pancreatic cancer research and care.
