Hiroaki Akamatsu

Hiroaki Akamatsu, MD, PhD, is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of Thoracic Oncology at Wakayama Medical University Hospital. He is one of Japan's leading thoracic oncologists with deep expertise in both KRAS-targeted therapy and chemo-immunotherapy combination regimens in NSCLC. Akamatsu was a principal Japanese investigator for the KRYSTAL-1 trial evaluating adagrasib (MRTX849), a covalent KRAS G12C inhibitor, in previously treated KRAS G12C-mutant NSCLC. KRYSTAL-1 demonstrated an objective response rate of approximately 43% with adagrasib monotherapy and a median duration of response exceeding 8 months, leading to FDA accelerated approval and establishing adagrasib as the second approved KRAS G12C inhibitor alongside sotorasib. Importantly, KRYSTAL-1 also evaluated adagrasib combined with cetuximab to cotarget KRAS G12C and EGFR feedback signaling, demonstrating improved response rates compared to adagrasib monotherapy. Beyond KRAS-targeted therapy, Akamatsu has led Japanese clinical trials and investigator-initiated studies on first-line carboplatin plus pemetrexed plus pembrolizumab in non-squamous NSCLC, contributing Asian population data on chemo-immunotherapy outcomes and toxicity that helped inform KEYNOTE-189 cross-ethnic validity. He has published on pharmacogenomic differences in immunotherapy toxicity patterns between Japanese and Western patients and serves on the Japan Lung Cancer Society guidelines committee.