Lunit to provide customized treatment by predicting immunotherapy response

Lunit said it would demonstrate the efficacy of its artificial intelligence-based biomarker platform, Lunit Scope IO, by participating in the U.S. Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2021 conference.

Lunit said it would present study results that have confirmed that its AI-based biomarker platform Lunit Scope IO can help predict immunotherapy responses in patients at the SITC 2021 conference held in Washington D.C., from Wednesday to Sunday.

Lunit Scope IO analyzes a patient's cancer tissue slide image and observes the distribution of cancer tissue tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), one of the representative immune cells. Afterward, the platform classifies the TIL distribution into three immunological traits -- active, excluded, and deficient.

SITC is the largest conference in the field of immunotherapy. This year's event will be held on- and offline for the first time since the Covid-19 outbreak. Washington D.C. will host the event from Wednesday to Sunday. Lunit will be the first and only medical AI company in Korea to attend the conference.

The company explained that it is possible to predict whether a patient will respond to immunotherapy and increase the therapeutic effect by going through such a process.

During SITC 2021, Lunit will present a study that proves Lunit Scope IO's effectiveness in new drug development clinical trials. In the study, the company's team analyzed cancer tissue slide images of 31 colorectal cancer patients who received a combination treatment of Medpacto's Vactosertib and MSD's Keytuda using Lunit Scope IO.

As a result, the team confirmed a 25 percent treatment response rate in the group of patients that the Lunit Scope IO classified as having excluded immunological traits and no response rate to treatment in the other groups.

The company stressed that by using Lunit AI, hospitals and medical staff could detect patients who respond to immunotherapy in advance.

"Numerous studies over the past few years have demonstrated the predictive power of AI biomarkers for immunotherapy responses, and the company is happy to be able to demonstrate greater potential and effectiveness of its AI platform through this study," Lunit CEO Suh Beom-seok said. "It is our ultimate goal to utilize Lunit Scope IO in actual clinical trials and provide customized treatment to cancer patients in all areas."