ASCO 2026 | Practice-changing advances in DLBCL immunotherapy in 2026

Yeah, in 2026, we’re lucky because little changes, I think, are going to result in large impacts over this year and over the next five years and more. One example of that is just what we almost call a little practical thing. There was a study that was published called an EPCORE NHL-6 trial showing that epcoritamab for DLBCL could be used safely in the outpatient setting. I mean it’s not a new medicine, it’s not really given in a very different way, it’s just kind of optimizing the safety, but that is a huge result because community oncologists still see the vast majority of DLBCL patients in America, certainly in the frontline setting, you know, probably more than 80-85% of those patients are with community oncologists who are trying to take care of them, but it is very hard for those community oncologists to hospitalize patients, to observe for CRS, and therefore the fact that this can be done safely in the outpatient setting for the vast majority of people, not for every 98-year-old, but for the vast majority of people, is of a great impact, a practical impact, but also it was a make-or-break thing for the utilization of this therapy by community oncologists. So that’s a significant impact, but that will actually be, I would say, leveraged into a much greater impact over the next year and beyond because we’re going to have results of the first frontline randomized trial of bispecific antibody immunotherapy for frontline DLBCL. This is the most common type of lymphoma and frontline setting is, again, many fold more patients than we see in later line settings. So we don’t know the results of that trial, but I think we all probably predict and I certainly expect that the results are going to be positive and that that will soon lead to a regulatory approval for epcoritamab plus R-CHOP in the frontline DLBCL therapy setting. And the fact that this can now be done in the outpatient setting will make it both, I think, promising and appealing for patients, better efficacy, and also feasible for community oncologists. So overall, in the near term, I would say that’s one of the most impactful things that have occurred this year and will affect the next few years of how we take care of patients with immunotherapy, even in the most common frontline settings.

This transcript is AI-generated. While we strive for accuracy, please verify this copy with the video.