Sponsored Symposia

Sponsored Symposia

Add Sponsored Symposia to your schedule and connect with industry supporters to learn about developments and technologies in the field of cancer immunotherapy.

Food and beverage provided at all Sponsored Symposia events.

Sponsored Symposia content and views expressed therein are those of the sponsoring organization and not of SITC.

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024

Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024  | 12:45–1:45 p.m. |  Level 3 – Grand Ballroom B

Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL) Symposium

Houston’s Cell Therapy Ecosystem: Creating a Holistic Engine to Drive Cell Therapy from Concept to First-In-Human and Beyond

Houston is biotech’s best-kept secret. Over the past decade, the city has cultivated a dynamic ecosystem specializing in cell therapy and cutting-edge medical technologies. At the heart of this innovation are the 54 institutions within the Texas Medical Center, including the renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center. With over 10 million patient visits annually, TMC offers biotech companies unparalleled access to patients and state-of-the-art development and manufacturing facilities. This environment fosters unique partnerships that create a capital-efficient pathway for translating novel research into clinical applications, accelerating the delivery of life-saving treatments. In this roundtable discussion, cell therapy leaders will showcase how Houston’s ecosystem speeds up the transition from groundbreaking research to patient care and leverages high-quality data and specialized platforms to drive transformative advancements in healthcare.
Luncheon sponsored by CTMC+, Obsidian Therapeutics, and KSQ Therapeutics

Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024


Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024  | 5:30–7 p.m. |  Room 320 C

Breakthrough Immunotherapies Transforming Early-Stage NSCLC Treatment

New innovations in immunotherapy are transforming the treatment paradigm in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and significantly improving patient survival.

Join this live satellite symposium offered in conjunction with the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2024 meeting. Don't miss this opportunity to join leading experts as they dive in to explore clinical implications of emerging evidence on novel immunotherapeutic regimens, including patient selection, treatment response and monitoring, toxicity management, and quality of life considerations.

This interactive session will also feature clinical case discussions and a live Q&A with the experts, addressing "top of mind" questions from the audience.

Speakers: Patrick Forde, MBBCh & John V. Heymach, MD, PhD

Moderator: Ryan J. Atkinson, PharmD, MBA

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 320 A

Applications of Adaptive Immune Receptor Profiling in Biomarker Discovery

Cellecta's sponsored symposium at the 2024 SITC meeting will highlight the work of our scientists and collaborators to apply sequencing-based Adaptive Immune Receptor Repertoire (AIRR) profiling to biomarker discovery and characterization of T and B cells. The speakers at our lunch event will be Alex Chenchik, Cellecta president and chief scientific officer, as well as Dr. Seth Pollack, professor and director of the Sarcoma Program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m. |  Room 320 C

What’s Next for TIL Cell Therapy?

Presenters: Jeffrey Chou, Senior Vice President Clinical Science  &  Hequn Yin, Senior Vice President Research, Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc.

Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc is pioneering a transformational approach to treating cancer by harnessing the ability of the immune system using a patient’s own Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL). Iovance’s TIL Cell Therapy platforms have promising outcomes across multiple solid tumors. Come learn about Iovance’s innovative TIL Cell Therapy platforms currently in preclinical development and clinical trials across solid tumors.

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 310 A

A Treatment Option for Certain Adults with Advanced Gastric or GEJ Adenocarcinoma

Learning Objectives:

  • Provide an overview of gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer
  • Review hypothetical patient cases of advanced gastric or GEJ cancer
  • Present the clinical data for a treatment option for certain patients with advanced gastric or GEJ cancer

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 310 C

Same-section multiomics with the MACSima™ Platform – Deeper insights to advance cancer immunotherapy

Spatial biology allows you to deep dive into your sample, no matter what tissue or cells you analyze. Reach the next level of characterization and analysis of your tumor microenvironment with our spatial biology solution, the MACSima™ Platform. With the launch of RNAsky, our cutting-edge technology has become a spatial multiomics platform. Explore high-plex proteomics combined with RNA on the same section, and unveil more than ever before. During the symposium, we will show how researchers use our novel approach for highplex spatial multiomics, enabling in-depth spatial protein and gene profiling of a wide variety of cell types and states within the tumor immune microenvironment, highlighting the power of the MACsima Platform in accelerating biomarker discovery and developing more effective, personalized immunotherapies.

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 5:30–7 p.m.  |  Room 320 A

A single cell and spatial transcriptomics platform for measuring the effectiveness of GD2-CAR-T cell therapy

Recent clinical trials have indicated that GD2 CAR-T cell therapy can be safe and effective against Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG). However, the results are mixed. To better understand the heterogeneity in response, scRNA-Seq with immune profiling was performed on the CNS fluid samples at multiple timepoints to profile the populations of tumor and immune cells. To determine the level of correlation with the CAR-T cell infiltration into the solid tumors, spatial transcriptomic analysis was performed on biopsy tissues. In this session, we will describe the analytical establishment of this comprehensive platform and latest results of the studies.

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 5:30–6:30 p.m. |  Room 310 A

A New Era of Precision Immuno-Oncology Research Fueled by Omics-Based Technology, Testing, and Linked Real-World Data

The rapid evolution of omics-based technology and analytic methodology has greatly advanced our understanding of tumor biology and cancer mechanisms. Combined with the integration of multi-omics testing across DNA, RNA, and IHC in routine clinical care and the availability of rich real-world datasets, this progress is fueling a new era of precision immuno-oncology in which real-world insights will inform, improve and accelerate the development and implementation of novel immuno-therapeutic interventions. In this new era, many new data sources are available, however, challenges like missing data, non-representative populations, and low data quality persist. The Flatiron-Caris Clinical-Molecular Database (CMDB) was established to overcome these barriers and address previously unanswerable research questions. This session will explore the rapidly evolving state of precision immuno-oncology research and we will present a recent analysis using the CMDB to uncover novel insights into tumor biology and survival outcomes in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with first-line immunotherapy plus chemotherapy. Join us to learn more about how this data is revolutionizing precision oncology research.

Kristin M. Zimmerman Savill, Director of Scientific Engagement, Precision Oncology, Flatiron Health

Friday, Nov. 8, 2024  | 5:30–7 p.m. |  Room 320 C

Harnessing the Power of Immuno-Modulating Vaccines in Cancer Treatment

Join us for this dynamic symposium as two esteemed oncologists examine groundbreaking treatment advances in cancer vaccines, focusing on emerging evidence and mechanisms of action behind novel immune-modulating therapeutic cancer vaccines, including recent clinical data in advanced melanoma. Discover how these innovative treatments are poised to transform the treatment paradigm, offering new options for patients with cancer. Hear expert insights on clinical implications of emerging evidence, including patient eligibility, treatment selection, and considerations for integration of novel cancer vaccines into clinical practice. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to get your most pressing questions answered by leading experts and explore the potential of these novel treatment approaches to improve health outcomes for patients with advanced melanoma and other cancers.

Speakers: Jason J. Luke, MD, FACP & Geoffrey T. Gibney, MD

Moderator: Ryan J. Atkinson, PharmD, MBA

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 310 A

Introducing VYLOY (Zolbetuximab-clzb): A New Treatment Option for Your Patients with Advanced* HER2-Negative G/GEJCancer

Impact of Gastric/Gastroesophageal Junction (G/GEJ) Cancer, G/GEJ Adenocarcinoma Biomarker Overview and reviewing established and emerging biomarkers.

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 310 C

When Anti-PD1 Therapy Fails, Could Oncolytic Immunotherapy Impact Outcomes in Advanced Melanoma?

In this activity, experts review the evidence for using oncolytic immunotherapy in combination with a systemic immunotherapy to manage advanced melanoma, exploring the characteristics that help identify patient suitability for this therapeutic approach.

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 320 A

Harnessing spatial multi-omics powered by spatial computing to unravel the complexities of the tumor microenvironment

Spatial intratumor heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment is widely acknowledged as driving therapeutic response and providing fuel for drug resistance to immuno-oncology therapies. We present an unbiased and explainable AI-driven spatial multi-omics platform, SpaceIQ™, that improves our
understanding of the immunological responses to drugs in the TME and enables the development of spatial prognostic/predictive biomarkers that are key to designing precision medicine treatments. The SpaceIQ platform employs an advanced probabilistic framework to analyze spatial multi-omics data, to identify functionally relevant transition cell states, discover heterogeneous microdomains linked to disease progression, and elucidate intricate pathway interactions and signaling networks, including mechanisms of action. The SpaceIQ approach is pivotal in deciphering tumor dynamics from initiation to resistance, and discovering robust spatial biomarkers for predicting therapeutic responses.

This session will dive into multiple use cases of SpaceIQ platform utilized for various immunotherapy studies among researchers worldwide, which will be followed by a Panel Q&A session.

Presenters/panelists:
Dusty Majumdar, PhD, CEO, PredxBio
Arutha Kulasinghe, PhD, Lead Clinical-oMx Lab, Univ. of Queensland
Travis Hollman, MD, PhD, Head of Translational Pathology, Bristol Myers Squibb
Michael Surace, PhD, Director Translational Medicine, AstraZeneca
Chakra Chennubhotla, PhD, Chief of AI and Co-founder, PredxBio

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024  | 12:30–1:30 p.m.  |  Room 320 C

Evaluating treatment efficacy and tumor immune contexture with InSituPlex and STARVUE technologies

An Ultivue representative will introduce Ultivue InSituPlex products and AI driven STRAVUE platform and their ability to detect and quantify specific proteins with high sensitivity, accuracy, and precision that are crucial for biomarkers discovery and validation during drug development and clinical studies. Following the Ultivue introduction, Dr Scott Daigle, Senior Director, Translational Medicine at Nimbus Therapeutics will share preliminary results generated by applying InSituPlex and STARVUE technologies to matched pre- and post- treatment biopsies from cancer patients of an ongoing phase ½ clinical study. Immunophenotyping results demonstrate modulation of the tumor immune microenvironment in treated patients through increased t cell recruitment and activation.