During the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology conference (ASCO), the latest development and progress being achieved in cancer care are shared. At Tersan we made a close follow-up of this event, being a key player in the cancer research process and pioneer of the health Explainable Artificial Intelligence technology (xAI).

With over 40.000 attendees, ASCO 2023 provided a high-profile platform for the readout of cancer treatment paradigms and oncology medical practice.

Some specifics of this year conference indicated a higher number of studies describing the Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC), including almost 50 presentations, and a dedicated session of the congress.  Indeed, the main novelty to be highlighted with the new ADC compounds relates to the variety of payloads used in these drugs and, most importantly, the broader tumor types targeted in the current studies as compared to the previous decades ones focusing mainly on breast cancer conjugates with maytansine derivatives.

Other topics of the conference are also of particular interest considering the huge medical need for cancer management. This includes important data with Osimertinib in adjuvant Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer in Phase 3 study (ADAURA) that demonstrated first significant Disease-Free Survival benefit (50% DFS improvement versus placebo of 5-year survival).

Servier promised earlier this year that interim data from a Phase 3 study (INDIGO) would “shift the treatment paradigm” for a type of brain cancer that has long been stagnant in clinical research. Now, we’ve got the goods as vorasidenib resulted in an outstanding median 27.7 months of progression free survival (PFS) in patients with residual or recurrent grade 2 glioma with an Isocitrate Dehydrogenase 1/2 mutation (IDH1/2).

This ASCO 2023 indicates also significant trend for development therapeutic vaccines in oncology. Several early development trials were presented, with specific emphasis on favorable data from two Phase 2 studies with two vaccines from the Transgene using respectively an anti-HPV-16 in ano-genital cancers, and another personalized therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of head & neck cancer, using individual tumor sequencing model driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Among these poster sessions and clinical symposia of ASCO, AI was reported as a key component and sometimes highlighted as a cornerstone in the current progress of cancer research. This refers to the high number of reported study results using AI based technologies, along with the education session entitled, “Artificial Intelligence for Drug Development: Fad or Future?”.  The session included three talks; the first focused on using AI to aid treatment selection, the second using AI to optimize drug-dosing, and the third described AI-based biomarkers.

Overall, we are all proud at Tersan to be part of this great advances in cancer research, and the favorable feedback of our presentation* in this ASCO 2023 will increase our Team commitment to deploy our xAI innovative approaches to contribute in drug development optimizations and ultimately support physicians for cancer management.

(Note*: reference to Tersan abstract “Artificial intelligence–based biomarkers of response to immunotherapy in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer considering previous lines of treatment”).