U.S. to test immunotherapy drugs on newly diagnosed brain tumors

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. researchers are finalizing plans to test two immunotherapy drugs made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co on patients newly diagnosed with the most common form of deadly brain tumors in adults. Dr. Mark Gilbert, a leading brain tumor researcher at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he got approval last Tuesday from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to start designing the trial, likely to begin this fall, with the melanoma drug Yervoy and an experimental drug called nivolumab. The trial will be run through the nonprofit NRG Oncology, an NCI sponsored cooperative group of cancer researchers. “We’re really excited about them,” said Gilbert, who spoke in an interview at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.