Company: OCEA
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001641172-25-003155
Chunk: 2477

Company: Ocean Biomedical, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 2477
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 third-line therapy, and so on. First-line therapy, sometimes called induction therapy, primary therapy
or front-line therapy, is the first therapy that will likely be attempted. If a first-line therapy either fails to produce sufficient
antitumor response or produces intolerable side effects, additional therapies may be substituted or added to the treatment regimen, known
as second-line or third-line treatments. Often, multiple therapies may be administered simultaneously, known as combination therapy or
polytherapy.

Surgery
is usually the first choice for early stage disease followed by radiation and chemotherapy. Targeted therapies and immunotherapy are
the main options in advanced disease, in stages III and IV.

Targeted
therapy is a treatment that targets the cancer’s specific genes, proteins or the tissue environment that contributes to cancer
growth and survival. This type of treatment blocks the growth and spread of cancer cells and limits damage to healthy cells.

Immunotherapy
is designed to boost the body’s natural antitumor immune defenses. Lung cancers often contain genetic mutations that are seen as
“non-self” by the host’s immune system because they are not seen in normal cells and tissues. The human immune system
is designed to attack and eliminate cells and tissues that it detects as foreign or “non-self.” However, in many patients
with cancer these desired antitumor responses are suppressed by the tumor and surrounding cells. This is done by activating one of a
number of immune checkpoint inhibitor pathways, or ICPI pathways.

An
example of the multiple ICPI pathways that have been discovered that has received significant attention in lung cancer is the programmed
death-1/ PD-ligand 1, or PD-1/PD-L1, pathway. In many patients with lung cancer, the immune cells and nearby cells, such as macrophages
express, PD-1 and the tumor cells express its binding partner PD-L1. When PD-L1 binds PD-1, it activates pathways that suppress the host’s
antitumor immune response. On the other hand, therapeutics (usually antibodies) have been developed that prevent these PD-1/PD-L1 interactions.
These therapies boost the host’s antitumor responses which augments its ability to attack the tumor. Because there are multiple
ICPI pathways, assays that determine which pathway(s) is activated in a given tumor have been and are being developed. This allows the
therapeutic intervention to be directed to the ICPI pathway that is most important in a given individual.

Importantly,