D’Angelo, Sandra P.
Hunger, Matthias
Brohl, Andrew S.
Nghiem, Paul
Bhatia, Shailender
Hamid, Omid
Mehnert, Janice M.
Terheyden, Patrick
Shih, Kent C.
Brownell, Isaac
Lebbé, Céleste
Lewis, Karl D.
Linette, Gerald P.
Milella, Michele
Schlichting, Michael
Hennessy, Meliessa H.
Bharmal, Murtuza
Funding for this research was provided by:
Pfizer
National Institutes of Health/NCI Cancer Center Support (P30 CA015704)
Merck KGaA
Article History
Received: 28 August 2018
Accepted: 24 December 2018
First Online: 5 February 2019
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: Sandra P. D’Angelo reports consultancy for EMD Serono, Amgen, Nektar, Immune Design, and GlaxoSmithKline, and reports travel, accommodations, or expenses from Adaptimmune and EMD Serono. Matthias Hunger reports employment by the Mapi Group, which provides consulting for healthcare companies. Andrew S. Brohl reports expert testimony for GlaxoSmithKline by an immediate family member. Paul Nghiem reports consultancy for EMD Serono and Pfizer Inc and reports a patent pending for high-affinity T-cell receptors that target the Merkel polyomavirus, honoraria from EMD Serono and Merck Sharp & Dohme, and research funding from Bristol-Myers Squibb and EMD Serono. Shailender Bhatia reports consultancy from Genentech/Roche and EMD Serono; travel, accommodations, or expenses from EMD Serono and NantKwest; honoraria from Genentech/Roche, and EMD Serono; and research funding from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Immune Design, Merck, EMD Serono, Conkwest, OncoSec, and NantKwest. Omid Hamid reports consultancy for Amgen, Novartis, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Merck; speakers bureau for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, Novartis, and Amgen; and research funding from AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celldex, Genentech, Immunocore, Incyte, Merck, Merck Serono, MedImmune, Novartis, Pfizer, Rinat, and Roche. Janice M. Mehnert reports consultancy for Merck Sharp & Dohme, Amgen, and Boehringer Ingelheim; travel, accommodations, or expenses from EMD Serono and Merck Sharp & Dohme; honoraria from Genentech and EMD Serono; research funding from Merck, Sanofi, Novartis, Polynoma, Immunocore, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Incyte, and MacroGenics; and other relationships with Amgen, EMD Serono, Merck, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Patrick Terheyden reports honoraria from Novartis, Roche, and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK; consultancy for Novartis, Roche, Bristol-Myers Squibb UK, and Merck and Co, Inc; and travel, accommodations, or expenses from Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK. Céleste Lebbé reports honoraria from Roche, Novartis, Amgen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK; consultancy for Roche, Novartis, Amgen, Merck Sharp & Dohme, and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK; speakers bureau for Roche, Amgen, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK; research funding from Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK; and travel, accommodations, or expenses from Roche, Amgen, and Bristol-Myers Squibb UK. Karl D. Lewis reports research funding from Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Michele Milella reports consultancy for Pfizer and Novartis and travel, accommodations, or expenses from Novartis. Michael Schlichting and Murtuza Bharmal report employment by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Meliessa H. Hennessy reports employment by EMD Serono. All other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
: Data were analyzed from part A of trial EMR 100070-003/NCT02155647/JAVELIN Merkel 200, a single-arm, open-label, multicenter phase II study of avelumab as second-line or later therapy in patients with distant mMCC. The study was performed in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki and all current local regulations. Patients were enrolled in accordance with the protocol, which received institutional review board approval at each site. For a list of sites included in the study, please see reference 14.
: Written informed consent was provided by patients prior to initiating any study procedures, which covered permission to use their data for any scientific analysis, like this one.