Benjamin L. Schlechter, MD, on Addressing Unmet Needs in HER2 Positive Solid Tumors

“There's sort of 2 big groups of HER2 solid tumors: there's the breast cancer population, and there's everybody else. The reality in breast cancers is there's a myriad of effective treatments: cytotoxics, antibody drug conjugates, combinations, monoclonal antibodies, and targeted therapies. And those have had much less benefit in other HER2-positive malignancies... HER2 therapy has not been as effective in GI malignancies and other malignancies as it has been in breast cancer.”

While commercially available treatment options have shown efficacy in treating HER2-positive solid tumors in patients with breast cancer, these same treatments have been less effective in treating patients with HER2-positive solid tumors in other types of cancers, such as gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies.

Benjamin L. Schlechter, MD, instructor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, recently presented data from the ongoing phase 1/2 TACTIC-2 clinical trial (NCT04727151) of TAC01-HER2, an investigational HER2-targeted T-cell antigen coupler (TAC) T-cell therapy intended to address unmet needs for patients with HER2-positive solid tumors, at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022, taking place September 9-13, in Paris, France, and virtually.

In an interview with CGTLive, Schlechter discussed the current state of care for patients with HER2-positive solid tumors, explaining the differences that exist in available options between the population of patients with HER2-positive breast cancers and patient populations with other types of HER2-positive solid tumors. He then gave an overview of the design of the TACTIC-2 clinical trial, describing the mechanism of the cell therapy and its intended method of avoiding off-target toxicity. He also briefly discussed the early safety and efficacy data that has come out of the clinical trial so far.