NEW YORK – Liquid biopsy firm Inivata said today that it is collaborating with the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, using its InVisionFirst-Lung test in a Pfizer-funded Phase II trial to test lung cancer patients under treatment with the ALK inhibitor lorlatinib (marketed as Lorbrena).
Investigators hope that this will help better define resistance mechanisms to the third-generation therapy, and potentially help unravel the impact of acquired resistance on response to sequential or combination therapies.
The study will include 84 patients across 30 participating EORTC sites in Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the UK.
Inivata will perform its test at different time points and for different purposes, including for pre-trial patient selection, at the point of disease progression, and throughout the course of the study to provide data on ALK mutational profile in relation to each patient's individual drug response.
"Understanding the patterns of resistance and relapse is one of the most burning challenges in oncology," EORTC Director General Denis Lacombe said in a statement.
"Better understanding of resistance will not only provide insight on how to design the next generation of treatment, but could also potentially suggest combination treatments to prevent the development of resistance," he added.