Dr Koehne Discusses Updates in Hematology Oncology at the Miami Cancer Institute Summit

In an interview with Oncology Learning Network, Guenther Koehne, MD, PhD, Deputy Director and Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Hematologic Oncology at the Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health South Florida, discusses the Third Annual Summit of the Americas on Immunotherapy for Hematologic Malignancies, and highlights updates since the event took place last year.

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Dr. Guenther Koehne. I'm the Deputy Director of Miami Cancer Institute. I'm the Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Immunotherapies and Hematologic Oncology at Miami Cancer Institute.

Oncology Learning Network: Describe what led to the launch of the Summit?

Dr Koehne: The launch of this Miami Cancer Institute Summit of the Americas on Immunotherapies for Hematologic Malignancies came with the repeating and complexity of new therapies that have been evolving over the last few years, particularly with an emphasis on reduced chemotherapy application and more immunotherapeutic approaches.

It's complex with new therapies which are including the CAR T cells and novel developments thereof.

We also have bispecific antibodies as an immunotherapeutic approach.

On top of that, we have antibody conjugates that are being administered for certain indications of hematologic malignancies.

All in that together, induces confusions among the physicians and the healthcare providers of what is best and when should we administer the treatments at the best time point and to have a very intimate discussion among the highly professionals and educated professionals that implemented these therapies.

I thought it's time to have a Summit that really focuses on the integration of these therapies and provide an update of where we are, and also importantly, where we are going.

OLN: What is its main goal/mission/functionality?

Dr Koehne: The mission of the Summit is to integrate novel immunotherapeutic approaches into the existing landscape for the treatment of hematologic malignancies.

We don't know exactly at this point what's the best timing of the administration of these cells or antibodies. We also don't know whether or not combinations of these potentially therapeutic approaches will provide a benefit over single administration. We don't even know anything about sequencing of these therapies.

It may well be that certain therapies, CAR T cells may be effective in the beginning but may not be as much as effective as following other immunotherapeutic approaches or the other way around.

Those are ongoing discussions, and this Summit will hopefully provide us and everybody an idea of where we are going and what would be needed in order to answer these questions.

OLN: Why are programs like this needed?

Dr Koehne: It's very difficult as a single physician to develop anything of significance. You need your colleagues. You need to have time to discuss. You need to have brainstorming. In short, you cannot really work in a silo and hope to change the world of therapeutic approaches for these complex malignancies.

These summits and big international meetings—American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting, is one of the biggest, usually 35,000 participants or more—but you lose a lot of personal activity and discussions with your colleagues.

This summit, as a smaller intimate meeting that brings together the lead physicians in their respective fields, pharmaceutical companies, and have the opportunity to really discuss on a one-on-one level of where we are, what we think we should do together to improve the outcome of these treatments.

OLN: What are the hot topics you are most excited about being covered at this event?

Dr Koehne: The integration of monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, for example, treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), relapsed refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma (MM), will be certainly hot topics of when and how to best integrate these treatments.

There will be a lot of discussions with respect to CAR T cells. CAR T cell therapies—that has been one of the highlights at the recent Ash meeting as well. But, there are also new developments. Now the CAR T cells have their indication.

They have their limitations, such as it takes time to produce the CAR T cells over a few weeks, and they are now novel approaches that try to circumvent this problem. There will be a lot of discussion more.

There is an ongoing discussion about donor-derived CAR T cells right now. I can go into a more detail in a moment.

Also, what's called third party derived CAR T cells. Third party CAR T cells are more off-the-shelf approaches that are immediately available and can be administered at the given time the patient requires an immediate treatment.

Those are all, as I indicated before, those are all discussions that have not been completed or clinical trials are needed in order to improve the outcome and have a better read out of where this is going. But it is happening and therefore, again, a Summit like this is just a necessity to have those discussions.

OLN: Anything else you'd like to add today on the Summit?

Dr Koehne: This is the Third Summit of the Americas on Immunotherapies for Hematologic Malignancies.

I'm happy to report it is an in-person meeting. We are all very, very dedicated and all prepared to come together again after 2 years of zooming in and zooming out more or less.

Here we have the first meeting in person at the Ritz Carlton in Coconut Grove, Miami, Florida.