› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Anti-SEMA4D (pepinmab) and Ipilamab (yervoy)
- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 8 months ago by Lucygoose.
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- February 28, 2019 at 4:25 pm
Hi. I am recently diagnosed 3B with an unknown primary. ‘ Normal’ course of action is surgery and an anti PD 1 like nivolomab( optigo).
Ive been offered a clinical trial to do 2 doses of an Anti SEMA4D (pepinmab (sp?) and Yervoy over 6 weeks prior to surgery then 1 year of optivo
My scans currently show involvement of the one large lymph node.
Anyone had had similar treatment? Can you share your experience?
Thank you.
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- February 28, 2019 at 5:11 pm
This is early days for both neoadjuvant care (treatment before tumor removal) and Pepinemab, Lucy. Perhaps there are those who have experience with Pepinemab (also called VX15, an anti-SEMA4D antibody produced by Vaccinex) and can respond. Thus far it is in studies with folks with Huntington's disease as well as folks with solid tumors, non-small cell lung cancer (for which we already know anti-PD-1 products like nivolumab/opdivo can be helpful), and osteosarcoma. Folks are hopeful that, when added to immuntherapy (like ipilimumab/Yervoy and nivolumab/opdivo) it will ramp up the body's immune response and make the effect greater.
Here are some links that might interest you:
Though both are from the company…so you have to consider that: http://www.vaccinex.com/development-programs/vx15-immuno-oncology/ and https://www.apnews.com/5c7fe5964bb82ebf77449a009092dbcf
Hope this helps and perhaps others will chime in. celeste
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- March 1, 2019 at 2:26 am
Dear Lucy, I am not an expert but some recent papers (i see them on twitter when i follow melanoma specialists) are coming out on the use of immunotherapy before surgery and reporting good results. I am not sure about the precise drugs you have in mind, and I think I would prefer this new drug plus nivo rather than plus ipi. But I would go for this approach – drugs before surgery and then nivo after surgery – rather than surgery and then nivo. I think the experts are arguing that if the tumour is still there then the drugs know what to go after; if you remove the tumour then the adjuvant nivo does not know what to target. I think that is the theory.
I am doing this in an extreme form – taking immunotherapy for two years instead of having surgery. Because its a little difficult to remove and last time we removed then it came back again. But in the end I may have to go for surgery – I had some shrinkage on immunotherapy thanks to TVEC but it wont completely disappear.
So I like the approach but cannot vouch for the magic VX15 or SEMAD you will be taking, but the rest seems to make sense.
good luck Mark
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