Agenus' BOT+BAL Combo Shows Promising Results in Colorectal Cancer Trial

Agenus Inc., a biotech company developing cancer treatments, has reported promising results from its Phase 1b trial of botensilimab (BOT) and balstilimab (BAL). The combination therapy showed a median overall survival of 21.2 months in patients with refractory microsatellite-stable metastatic colorectal cancer.

The study included 123 heavily pretreated patients who had received a median of three prior treatment lines. Despite their extensive history of treatment, the patients in this trial achieved a confirmed objective response rate of 21%, including three complete responses and 23 partial responses.

One notable aspect of these results is that the combination therapy showed activity even in tumors with low tumor mutational burden (TMB) and no detectable PD-L1 expression, indicating that BOT+BAL may work beyond conventional biological markers linked to checkpoint sensitivity.