Biotech Strategy Blog

AACR 2013 Posters offer Insights into Biotech Drug Development

By Pieter Droppert on April 15, 2013

In my final post from the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), I wanted to share some more reflections from my time in the poster sessions. It’s certainly not all mice, and test tubes, and there were some interesting data from biotechnology companies to consider.

Sometimes the data presented is completely new, other times if you are following a product or company you can see the next stage of development and track progress. AACR posters are often not available if you don’t attend the meeting.

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AACR 2013 posters show potential new Pfizer cancer drugs

By Pieter Droppert on April 12, 2013

My overriding impression of large cap Pharma R&D from the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) was that Novartis and Genentech remain the front-runners in cancer drug development, with Pfizer very much up and coming.

AstraZeneca, however, reported data for several drugs that have or soon will be going to “dog drug heaven.” If AstraZeneca receives an “A” for effort but a “C” for execution, then Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) was in my view a “D” at AACR with little presence.

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AACR 2013 Cancer Scientists fail to embrace Social Media

By Pieter Droppert on April 11, 2013

I will be writing in the next few days about some of the Pharma and Biotech winners and losers at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) that just finished in Washington D.C.

However, what was noticeable to me was the disappointing lack of Twitter conversation from the 18,000 cancer scientists at the meeting.

Part of this may reflect the culture of AACR, where it is forbidden to take photographs, record or transmit information. “Thou shalt not tweet” may be thought of as a logical extension of this. It’s certainly not easy to distil complex science into 140 characters.

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AACR 2013 GDC-0032 a next generation PI3K Inhibitor shows early promise in breast cancer

By Pieter Droppert on April 8, 2013

Genentech’s next generation PI3-kinase inhibitor, GDC-0032, was the topic of two presentations yesterday at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) taking place in Washington D.C.

Genentech have put substantial resources into developing new agents that target different elements of the PI3K pathway. These include: GDC-0941, GDC-0980, GDC-0084, GDC-0349, GDC-0068. At this year’s AACR, data on their latest compound, GDC-0032, was presented. This agent is a selective inhibitor of PI3K alpha, delta and gamma but spares inhibition of the PI3K-beta isoform.

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AACR 2013 DMUC5754A is a novel agent for Ovarian Cancer

By Pieter Droppert on April 7, 2013

The cherry blossoms are finally blooming in Washington DC for the 2013 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

With AACR in DC this year, the following traditional Japanese haiku published on the National Park Service website struck me as appropriate for cancer researchers and survivors to reflect on:

Yo no naka wa, Mikka minu ma ni, Sakura kana

“Life is short, like the three day glory of the cherry blossoms.”

Yesterday at AACR was predominantly an educational day, but several studies were highlighted to the assembled media. One of the late-breaking clinical trials that caught my attention was the preliminary phase 1 data on Genentech’s novel new agent DMUC5754A.

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What is the potential for galeterone in advanced prostate cancer?

By Pieter Droppert on March 6, 2013

Galeterone (Tokai Pharmaceuticals) is a new prostate cancer drug in development that has an interesting triple mechanism of action in that like abiraterone (Zytiga) it acts as a CYP17 lyase inhibitor, but it also acts as an androgen receptor (AR) inhibitor and is an AR degrading drug that decreases AR levels.

How effective it is compared to AR antagonists on the market such as enzalutamide (Medivation) or second-generation AR antagonists in development such as ARN-509 (Aragon Pharmaceuticals) or ODM-201 (Orion Pharma) is one of the many unanswered questions with this drug.

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Inhibitors of Apoptosis Target one of the Hallmarks of Cancer

By Pieter Droppert on February 28, 2013

The forthcoming annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington DC is a must attend for anyone interested in cancer research and new cancer drugs in development.

Many readers will know that one of the hallmarks of cancer is the evasion of apoptosis or cell death. Drugs in development that act as an inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAP) are starting to show promise against this target.

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ABT-199 clinical trials suspended after patient death $ABBV

By Pieter Droppert on February 15, 2013

Following a death due to tumor lysis syndrome, AbbVie ($ABBV) have suspended the ABT-199 clinical trial program. ABT-199 is a promising new drug in development for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that was about to enter phase 3 drug development by the company.

The company has issued no press release, but the clinicaltrials.gov web site shows that that clinical trials are suspended, information confirmed at the BIO CEO 2013 meeting in New York earlier this week. Here’s a quick snapshot taken on Feb 14, 2013 of what the clinicaltrials.gov site shows:

ABT 199 Clinical Trials Suspended ABT 199 clinical trials suspended after patient death $ABBV

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Dasatinib fails in Prostate Cancer #GU13

By Pieter Droppert on February 12, 2013

It’s disappointing to learn from the ASCO 2013 GU symposium abstracts published today that Bristol Myers Squibb’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, dasatinib (Sprycel), has failed in prostate cancer.

Dasatinib now joins a large graveyard of cancer drugs that showed promise in early clinical development in solid tumors, yet the data was not confirmed in a large scale randomized phase 3 trial.

The phase 1 / 2 trial results for dasatinib in advanced prostate cancer were published by John Araujo, MD and colleagues last year in the journal “Cancer” (Jan 1, 2012).

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ASCO GU 2013 Prostate Cancer Preview #GU13

By Pieter Droppert on February 1, 2013

What’s hot in prostate cancer at the forthcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (ASCO GU) (twitter hashtag #GU13) that takes place in Orlando from February 14 -16?

That’s the question I was asked recently, and while the abstracts have not yet been published, (embargo lifts at 6pm ET on February 12, 2013) the titles of the posters and choice of oral presentations offer some insight into what may be newsworthy data.

In the oral abstract session on February 14, 2012 two of the presentations of particular interest to me are:

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