What Patients Need to Know About Immunotherapy in 2026

March 1, 2026

Transcript

Voice over:

This is Bladder Cancer Matters, the podcast for bladder cancer patients, caregivers, advocates, and medical and research professionals. It’s brought to you by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, otherwise known as BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advances bladder cancer research, and provides educational and support services for bladder cancer patients and their loved ones. To learn more, please visit BCAN.org.

Rick Bangs:

Hi, I’m Rick Bangs, the host of Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast for, by and about the bladder cancer community. I’m also a survivor of muscle invasive bladder cancer, the proud owner of a 2006 model year neobladder, and a patient advocate supporting cancer research at the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, or as many call it BCAN, producers of this podcast.

This is the latest in a series of podcasts that we’re doing once again in 2026. In these podcasts, we highlight the commitment of BCAN’s pharmaceutical company partners to creating better todays and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families. Today, we’re featuring AstraZeneca as the March 2026 Partner in Progress. AstraZeneca’s oncology mission is to redefine cancer care by following the science to understand cancer’s complexities with the ultimate goal of eliminating cancer as a cause of death. While we’ll be talking today about immunotherapy, it’s important to remember that different treatments have different results in patients, and your results may vary.

I’m pleased to welcome our guest today, Dr. Josefa Briceno. Josefa is a surgical oncologist from Caracas, Venezuela, specializing in GI surgical oncology. Since 2015, AstraZeneca has been her home starting as a medical science liaison in women’s cancers. In 2016, Josefa transitioned to headquarters taking on roles of increasing responsibilities and medical affairs and leading multiple launches across different tumor types. She served as the breast cancer medical head for almost five years. In January 2025, she transitioned to the GYN GU franchise as its medical franchise head with responsibility across multiple agents and tumor types. Josefa, welcome.

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Rick, for having me.

Rick Bangs:

We’re thrilled to have you. So you’re the franchise head of US Medical Affairs at AstraZeneca, and could you help us understand what that role means and how you play a part in improving outcomes for patients with bladder cancer?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Thanks, Rick. And what this role means is that I am very fortunate to lead a very incredibly skilled and high-performing team that’s laser focused on transforming clinical practice. The way we work is by identifying evidence gaps, educational needs, and barriers that stand between patients and optimal care that they may receive. So my role is really about setting the strategic vision and staying closely integrated with the teams across AstraZeneca, so we’re all pulling in the same direction. At the end of the day, we share one goal that drives everything we do, that is eliminating bladder cancer as a cause of death, and that’s what gets us up every morning.

Rick Bangs:

Excellent. So you’ve been in this role for a couple years as I understand it. What appealed to you about AstraZeneca?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Well, from day one, what really struck me from AZ was how generally patient-centric the company is. And it doesn’t matter what role someone has, everybody’s truly focused on patients and improving their outcomes. So the passion is palpable. And there’s also this clear, strategic direction that makes you feel like you’re part of something bigger. And honestly, not only the expansion of the marketed assets, but the pipeline we have that’s coming is very exciting. Because we’re not just talking about incremental improvements, but we’re positioned to make a real difference in patients’ lives, and that’s what drew me in and keeps me there.

Rick Bangs:

Excellent, excellent. And we’ll look forward to seeing some of that in the future. Okay, so immunotherapy. It’s been used in bladder cancer for decades, starting with BCG. So we were using immunotherapy before it was cool. But over the past decade, we’ve seen these new immunotherapies, and they’ve dramatically changed how bladder and other cancers are treated. And patients have thankfully, as a result, experienced some improved outcomes. So why is bringing these new immunotherapies into bladder cancer such a significant shift in how the disease is being approached today?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Yeah, so what’s really exciting here is that we’re fundamentally rethinking when and how we intervene. For decades, bladder cancer didn’t see the kind of advances that other cancers experience, but now we’re exploring immunotherapy not just in advanced disease, but much earlier in the patient journey. And this shifts bringing something we hadn’t had enough of in this space for a long time, and that is, hope.

And these are effective treatments that can deliver meaningful outcomes in a disease that really needed, desperately needed, I would say, new options. But it’s bigger than just new therapies. We’re seeing a transformation in how you deliver care. So this isn’t now the isolated domain of the urologist or the oncologist anymore. It requires bringing together a multidisciplinary team and incorporating the patient’s voice. And AZ has already experienced immune oncology across very hard-to-treat cancers. And that has positioned us to apply some learnings and open the door to more informed conversations. So we’re not just treating differently, we’re thinking differently with now immunotherapies about the entire care paradigm.

Rick Bangs:

Okay. So AstraZeneca has deep experience in immunotherapies across other cancers. How is that experience shaping the questions you’re asking in the bladder cancer context, including how you explore immunotherapy earlier in the disease or around the time of surgery?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

So our experience in other tumor types has been really invaluable. We’ve learned a lot about timing, about the importance of early intervention, and that’s directly shaping how we’re thinking about bladder cancer. So instead of waiting until later stages, we’re asking whether immunotherapy can play a meaningful role earlier, including around the time of surgery. And that shift in thinking comes from what we’ve seen work in other cancers.

But it’s not just about the science. We’ve also learned to identify the critical stakeholders in a patient’s journey from the moment of diagnosis through surgery planning and beyond. And we now know, with all the experience we’ve gathered, that educating both patients and physicians about what to expect with perioperative regimens is absolutely essential. People really need to make informed decisions with enough time to process their options without surprises. That means that you need better coordination between the surgical teams and the oncology teams, and care conversations along the whole care continuum. We’re taking all those learnings, applying them thoughtfully in bladder cancer and utilizing all the insights we have to guide the careful exploration and support of the multidisciplinary dialogue that ultimately, of course, benefits patients.

Rick Bangs:

So I want to talk about that dialogue a little bit, because bladder cancer care often involves more than one specialist. You’ve already mentioned neurologists and medical oncologists. So how do they work together and why is that collaboration especially important as newer approaches like immunotherapy are being explored?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

And this is so critical for bladder cancer, because bladder cancer is an inherently complex disease. And having multiple specialists involved, it’s not just helpful now, it’s necessary for optimal treatment outcomes and truly informed decision making.

So what makes this collaboration so powerful is that the urologist and the medical oncologist bring generally complimentary perspective to the table. So oncologists needs to be acutely aware of surgical criteria and what makes a patient an optimal surgical candidate. And on the flip side, the urologists need to be profoundly knowledgeable about when systemic therapy is appropriate, and in many cases, they’re actually taking the lead or managing patients through these treatments.

So this integrated approach becomes even more critical as we explore newer options like bringing, as we’ve mentioned before, immunotherapy earlier in the disease, because we’re moving beyond surgery as the only intervention, and that requires specialists to think together about timing, about sequencing, and about all the different approaches that fit into each patient’s unique situation. So when you have a strong multidisciplinary model, this allows us to align recommendations early. That creates a foundation for clear conversation and coordinated care. So ultimately, it’s really about ensuring that patients benefit from the full expertise on each of these disciplines in their care team, that need to be working in concert and not in silos.

Rick Bangs:

So speaking of increasingly important, shared decision-making is widely discussed in cancer care. In bladder cancer specifically, what does shared decision-making really look like in practice, especially as people move through surgery, adjuvant therapy and then ongoing management?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Yes. So shared decision-making isn’t just one conversation. I have to say that this is a process that evolves, as you just said, as the patient moves through different stages, surgery, adjuvant therapy, long-term management. But to me, the critical piece is that shared decision-making can’t happen without the right information.

We need to understand what’s important to patients, what are their preference, and we need to meet both patients and physicians where they are with the tools they need to have those meaningful discussions. So in practice, what does this mean? It means providing clear education at every stage about what to expect, what’s the purpose of the surgery, what will be the consequences of the surgery, the role of adjuvant therapy when it’s appropriate, and how the care plans might shift over time? Open conversations about potential side effects and how they’ll be managed are very critical because people need to be prepared and not surprised.

And this is where that multidisciplinary coordination becomes so valuable. So if you have urologists and medical oncologists that are consistently communicating, patients receive an aligned message that makes their decisions feel clearer and more grounded, and they trust their team. So real, shared decision-making requires us to equip everyone that’s involved with the right information at the right time so patients can actively participate in choices being informed, of course, that reflect their values and their goals throughout the treatment journey.

Rick Bangs:

So critically important. You’ve laid out the timeline, the journey very nicely. Let’s talk about the challenges patients may have completing their immunotherapy treatment. What recommendations do you have for patients and for their care teams?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Yes, and this may be tied a little bit to what we talked before about information. So completing immunotherapy can be challenging, and I think the foundation starts with managing the expectations from the very beginning. Back to what we said before.

Rick Bangs:

Right.

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Patients need to understand what the treatment journey will look like, what they might experience, and why this approach matters based on the data and the science, like, “Why am I doing this? What am I going to get out of it?”

This education builds the trust and help people feel more prepared for what’s ahead. But what’s equally important in my opinion here, is self-advocacy. I really encourage the patients to ask questions about their options, the timing, what to expect, because that clarity helps them understand the rationale behind the recommendations of the surgeon and the oncologist. And they feel more in control. Speaking up about side effects, about symptoms, day-to-day challenges. That’s not only helpful, it’s really essential because it allows the care teams to offer earlier support, adjust management strategies, and all this before small issues really become big obstacles.

And patients really should feel empowered to share their priorities. What’s important to you as a patient? It may be quality of life, your responsibilities at work, your family, even the tolerance for treatment intensity varies amongst all of us. And all these conversations will help guide the decisions that feel realistic for you and really align to what most matters, right?

So bottom line, the open communication with the medical team is really the thread that ties all this together. If you have a patient that feels heard, supported, when care teams are responsive and accessible, you are reinforcing the idea we mentioned about shared decision-making and assuring that the care reflects both the medical considerations and the individual’s needs.

Rick Bangs:

Again, critically important. So how can partnerships between advocacy organizations in industry like the work that BCAN and AstraZeneca do together, how can that help ensure that innovation is shaped by real patient needs and that patients feel supported as new areas of science and care continue to emerge?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Yeah, so partnerships like the ones between BCAN and AstraZeneca are super essential, because they really create genuine opportunities for us to listen and learn and understand that lived experience of bladder cancer beyond what the clinical data tells us. So advocacy organizations bring the patient voices directly to the table, and they ensure that innovation isn’t just driven by scientific progress, but it’s truly informed by what matters most to patients, whether that’s education needs, care navigation, or just the day-to-day impact of living with this disease, that’s critically important.

So when we work together, we can develop educational resources and support programs that are more relevant, that are patient-centric, that are grounded in real-world experiences, instead of just assuming what the patient wants or needs. It’s about bridging that gap between science and the actual lives that patients are living. And through these collaborations, we stay accountable to the people we’re ultimately serving, and we make sure that as we get new treatments and new emerging care approaches, they really feel to the patients that they’re meaningful, and they’re aligned to what they need. So at the end of the day, patients shouldn’t have to navigate the journey alone. And strong partnerships help ensure they have support, information and the voice they deserve.

Rick Bangs:

Excellent. Excellent. How about any final thoughts?

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Well, I think what excites me the most is that we’re at a real turning point in bladder cancer care. We’re bringing hope where it’s needed for so long. We’re thinking differently about when and how we intervene, and we’re finally putting patients at the center of every decision. And none of this happens in isolation. It takes passionate teams. It takes collaboration across specialties within the medical community. It takes meaningful partnerships of pharma with advocacy. And most importantly, as I said before, listening to patients, understanding what matters to them. And there’s still work to do, but I’m very optimistic about where we’re headed and the difference that we can all make together.

Rick Bangs:

Your optimism is palpable. So Josefa, I want to thank you for sharing AstraZeneca’s part in creating better todays and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families.

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Thank you so much, Rick, for having me. It was a pleasure to be here.

Rick Bangs:

If you’d more information on bladder cancer, please visit the BCAN website, www.BCAN.org. Just a reminder, if you’d more information about bladder cancer, you can contact the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network at 1-888-901-2226. That’s all the time we have today. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to this podcast so we have your feedback. Thank you for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another interesting episode of Bladder Cancer Matters. Thanks again, Josefa.

Dr. Josefa Maria Briceno:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network or BCAN. Beacon works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advanced bladder cancer research, and provide educational and support services for bladder cancer patients. For more information about this podcast and additional information about bladder cancer, please visit BCAN.org.