New Long-term Data 'Clearly Favor' Combination Ipilimumab/Nivolumab in Melanoma

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

I'm Dr Jeffrey Weber, a medical oncologist at the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health here in New York City. I would like to report to you today on several abstracts presented at the recent ASCO meeting that was held virtually. Both were long-term updates of important, large trials that were conducted over the past couple of years.

The most important one, in my view, was the 6.5-year, very long–term follow-up on the CheckMate 067 trial, presented by Dr Jedd Wolchok from Memorial Sloan Kettering. This was a large randomized trial of ipilimumab/nivolumab (IPI/NIVO) vs NIVO alone vs IPI alone. The response rate continues to be impressive for the IPI/NIVO arm at 58%, with a 45% response rate for the arm that received NIVO alone, and of course much less, 19%, for IPI alone.

Progression-free survival at 6.5 years of follow-up was 34% for the combo and 29% for NIVO alone. The median overall survival was 72 months for IPI/NIVO, which is very impressive, vs a 36.9 months for NIVO alone and 19.9 months for IPI alone. There is clear superiority all the way along that curve, starting at about a year of follow-up.