Two Drug Combination Benefits Patients with nRAS-Mutated Melanoma Refractory to Checkpoint Inhibition

Research presented at the 2023 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics found that a combination of two drugs targeting the nRAS mutation had clinical activity in patients with checkpoint-inhibitor refractory melanoma and had potential for treating other solid tumors with mutated nRAS as their oncogenic driver. Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, talks with OncTimes Talk’s Peter Goodwin about her group’s Nautilus phase 1b/2 study that added an oral histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), bocodepsin, to therapy with a mitogen-activated protein kinase enzyme (MEK) inhibitor, binimetinib, to target the RAS-pathway in solid tumors. The researchers found the combination of bocodepsin and binimetinib was tolerable in patients with RAS-mutated advanced cancers with manageable adverse events, and that this combination brought clinical responses indicating a potential benefit for patients who have failed immunotherapy.