Biotech Strategy Blog

Commentary on Science, Innovation & New Products with a focus on Oncology, Hematology & Cancer Immunotherapy

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Posts by MaverickNY

Wow I wished I’d thought of this!

View from Perdido Bay to Orange Beach

The sun is setting on the year end and the 2023 Holiday season brings our cancer conference coverage to a close until the new year.

Before we go, I wanted to end with a bang and highlight some really stunning and thoughtful research.

It was just published and is an absolutely amazing piece of thinking and execution.

Some of the best ideas come about in oncology R&D when we make the most of what’s already available biologically then borrow the concept so it can be applied therapeutically.

Rather than push the proverbial rock up the hill like Sisyphus, why not simply nudge it off the top and let nature take its course?

Sometimes even scientists are guilty of over-thinking things.

In this elegant work, the findings may well change the way we think about tackling some difficult to treat solid tumours going forward…

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An emerging new target for ER positive breast cancer

River Walk, San Antonio, Texas

The famous colourful umbrellas on the San Antonio river walk always remind me of cute little hats, which is a rather apt metaphor for today’s post on an emerging new target for breast cancer.

We have seen some success in ER+/HER2-negative breast cancers with the aromatase inhibitors and CDK4/6 inhibitors in first-line treatment of the disease and the SERDs elacestrant and fulvestrant in earlier and later lines, respectively, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

If we want to seek out new targets to address either resistance or even synthetic lethal relationships, how might we go about finding them?

In our latest post on this niche, we discuss an emerging target of interest, highlight the competitors in the early landscape and also offer some commentary from a couple of the companies involved…

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Same Controller, Opposite Outcomes

Immune cells look and act differently

In this latest post from the American Society of Hematology meeting we explore some of the scientific data emerging from San Diego.

Specifically, we are looking at how transcription factors such as TOX2 can drive divergent fates in T and NK cells.

It might be tempting to think it sounds a bit dry, yet the findings could have important implications for future therapeutic developments – especially in the design of novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell therapies, an area where CAR-NK cells have constantly struggled with poor persistence.

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The mystery ASH posters receiving a lot of attention

The quiet of ASH poster hall before the storm

Navigating the American Society of Hematology (ASH) poster halls are almost an art form in themselves.

Whereas at ASCO and AACR tend have select times for poster viewing, with a crowd eagerly waiting for the sessions to open, ASH have essentially two sittings for the daily poster viewings.

In the evening, the hematologists and oncologists have finished the oral presentations and head en masse for the two hour session in the aircraft hangar – hence the infamous ‘ASH Dash’ – whereupon it becomes so crowded you wish you had visited earlier when you had a chance.

The morning is more quiet and sedate, almost like a reference library where you can browse and revere some gems in peace.  It’s also the time when Pharma execs check out the competition, which means the wise ones watch the traffic flows and note which ones are garnering attention each year.

This creates some whimsical amusement for BSB readers – which posters were receiving more attention this year?

A couple in particular were noticeably more popular than others…

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Next generation of T and NK cell therapies

Taking a leaf out of Wayne Gretsky’s book, we’re continuing our theme round seeking to be inspired and highlighting another batch of early developments, which may offer promise in the future.

Don’t skate to where the puck is – skate to where it will be.

Some of the best innovations come about because scientists think deeply about the challenges and issues preventing therapies from working as they should and ignore dogma in their pursuit of innovation.

These may not necessarily be the most popular approaches of the day, yet they can yield satisfying rewards down the road. In fact, I’d argue it is often the few who go an entirely different way from the crowd who end up being successful in the long run.

In today’s post we highlight some of these enlightening developments, as well as others following solutions looking more obvious at first glance, yet could stumble down the road…

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Five inspiring presentations from Day 1 at ASH23

Rise and shine over San Diego

Fridays at ASH is usually the province of the education sessions, although increasingly it is becoming the day to catch some really useful and intriguing translational data.

If we want to know where the next developments are heading to then this is the way to find some emerging gems.

I struck lucky this year – the ones selected kept me listening rather than frantically looking for another parallel session to run to.

What emerged in some cases was a deep appreciation for some well thought out ideas based on novel targets, new CAR constructs, different modalities, or even other diseases altogether.

Here we highlight some excellent talks and how they may offer an impact in the future…

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You can’t put the genie back in the bottle

Are dark clouds rolling in on TIGIT?

Often times we see a press release for a negative trial – defined here as one which missed its primary endpoint – where the overwhelming temptation is to simply announce the top level findings and be done with it.

I will argue there are valuable lessons to be learned in the process, and sometimes, perhaps realise a different trial design or selection criteria might have led to an entirely different result.

Here is one example I’d like to highlight because phase 3 trials are already underway and there may be insights we can learn from and handicap future larger trial readouts…

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A look at T cell therapies at ASH23

Next stop – the ASH convention center!

In our final Preview ahead of the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), we’re focusing on immunotherapies.

With thousands of abstracts to wade through, it’s all too easy to think either there isn’t much going on or worse, so much it’s too complicated to even think about parsing.

To make things easier we picked ten different approaches to discuss, mostly involving early stage developments across numerous companies (big and small), plus a variety of targets, modalities and even immune cell subsets.

The value of looking at these kind of approaches now is being more prepared later in anticipating evolving trends and competitors because the IO space moves fast – and stealthily…

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Breathing fire into targeted therapies at ASH23

In our latest Preview from the American Society of Hematology, we’re using the dragon’s fire as a metaphor to represent the power and precise nature targeted therapies can have in combating cancer.

Just like the precise and intense flame of a dragon, when done well targeted therapies can focus on specific molecular or genetic targets within cancer cells, aiming to destroy them with accuracy and efficiency.

The image of a dragon’s fire also evokes a sense of strength and force. Similarly, targeted therapies exhibit strength in their ability to attack cancer cells while minimising damage to healthy cells, unlike traditional therapies such as chemotherapy, which can affect both cancer and healthy cells.

Dragons are often perceived as relentless and persistent creatures. In the same way, targeted therapies persistently aim at specific vulnerabilities or markers present in cancer cells, continuously working to inhibit their growth or destroy them over time.

Dragons are often depicted as overcoming obstacles or adversaries. Targeted therapies may represent a novel approach addressing specific challenges within cancer cells, aiming to overcome them and impede the progression of the disease.

We’re not interested in me-toos though – what we really need are either established products going into earlier lines of treatment in order to have a bigger impact on a wider group of people with cancer or new targets to chase and open up new avenues and opportunities for oncology R&D pipelines.

In this preview, we offer a wide selection with a potent mixture of both elements to consider…

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Seeing the wood from the trees at ASH23

Just a couple of years ago a particular hematologic target was all the rage with multiple companies, large and small, rushing a variety of early stage agents with different modalities and designs into the clinic.

Then silence ensued.

Some of them have inevitably gone by the wayside with time, while others are now showcasing their preclinical and clinical chops at the forthcoming annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Diego next month.

As with every oncology R&D niche there are winners and losers galore.

Here we identify ten key abstracts to watch out for, plus an additional one which could shed important light on some of the earlier findings…

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