Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Melanoma’

The calm before the morning storm surge at ESMO19!

Barcelona – I can’t recall the last time we published three long form posts from a conference before high noon (US time) on the same morning, but that certainly illustrates how busy this year’s ESMO is and there’s a lot more to come yet.

The initial starting coverage for today includes hot topics in ovarian, lung, and colorectal cancers and more will be added in due course.

If you are looking for osimetinib in FLAURA and AMG 510 in KRASm colorectal cancers, click on the BSB log in the top left corner to check out the front page slider for more information on those write-ups and commentary!

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In the enlightened realm of phase 1 oncology trials there generally more unknown unknowns than there are known unknowns, especially with new target approaches.

Who knew it was so beautiful outside of the cold dark halls?!

You could say that makes for a more interesting world, but it also makes for more caution, especially when the FDA is considering agonists that induce stimulatory effects.  What it means is that you start off very low – in this latest example it was 50µg and going up to 1600µg to determine the safety profile of a combination.

We have covered the STING pathway quite extensively over the last four or five years now, so it’s time for a new update and a look at some of the much awaited combination data. What can we learn?

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Neon Therapeutics LogoAs we prepare for rolling out some additional expert interviews on a variety of topics together with another mini-series on a tricky target, I wanted to take a moment to explore the Neon Therapeutics data.

Most of the news reports yesterday seemed to be concentrated around a general theme of ’cancer vaccine assist beats immunotherapy drugs alone!’or ‘vaccine boosts Opdivo response in 3 cancers’ … but does the data live up to the breathless hype that ensued? What can we say about the latest clinical update?

As often is the case, the true story around the facts turns out to be much more nuanced and subtle in flavour than the garish headlines might have you believe…

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Chicago – the 2019 ASCO annual meeting is in full swing and it’s plenary Sunday where the jewels in the crown are presented.

Noteworthy this year is the olaparib data being presented by Dr Hedy Kindler.

In this post, we’ve commentary on the data we’ve heard so far, highlights from yesterday’s sessions, and what you can expect to hear today if you’re in Chicago for Plenary Sunday.

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Chinatown Chicago

One of the things we try to do on BSB is tread paths that aren’t well travelled.

It’s a bit like coming to Chicago and visiting areas such as Chinatown that are beyond the common tourist sights. It can take a bit of effort, but often delivers a memorable experience in the process.

In this final preview of #ASCO19 before the educational sessions start tomorrow, we’re offering up 10 abstracts that we think are underrated and noteworthy of closer attention.

Like any guide book our recommendations are subjective, but if you’d like to read more then subscribers can login or you can purchase access.

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Continuing our in-depth oncology pathology interview with Dr David Rimm (Yale), we take a look at some of the new data his lab presented in Atlanta, where we are now with TMB as a biomarker, and what the future may hold for cancer immunotherapy biomarkers.

Early morning in Atlanta en route to the GWCC and AACR19

In an engaging discussion, Dr Rimm discussed many of the details behind PD-L1 and TMB in terms of what really matters when thinking about these tests and their practical applications. He also shared his candid thoughts on the lung cancer blood TMB data presented at AACR by Prof Solange Peters.

If you missed the first part of the interview with Dr David Rimm, a leading oncology pathologist at Yale, on the various challenges associated with PD-L1 as a biomarker on tumour and immune cells in triple negative breast cancer than you can catch up and read it here.

The second half of the interview with Dr Rimm focuses on TMB, with some more details on the challenges of reading PD-L1 on immune cells and why that is the case…

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Dr Adi Diab (MD Anderson) at SITC18

Washington DC – At the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) meeting on Friday evening, Dr Adi Diab (right) presented an update on the NKTR–214 plus nivolumab data from the phase 1b/2 dose escalation and RP2D expansion trial (PIVOT–02) in patients with 1L metastatic melanoma in the cytokine session chaired by Dr James Gulley (NCI) and Dr Darrell Irving (MIT).

Nektar also held an investor meeting over the weekend to discuss the data as well as where they are headed with their early pipeline compounds.

As we seek to find new and effective partners to add to immune checkpoint blockade, there are going to be some hits and misses in the mix.  This year alone April turned out to be a pivotal month in the calendar, as chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab was a big hit in 1L NSCLC from the KEYNOTE-189 trial at AACR, while Incyte’s IDO inhibitor, epacadostat, bombed as 1L treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma in the phase 3 ECHO-301 study.

Cytokines have definitely garnered a lot of interest of late, with some very creative molecules now emerging to address the systemic toxicities associated with traditional approaches. We’ve been covering the Nektar pegylation story for several years now with numerous updates, so how are the data looking this time around?

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SITC 2017

Treatment with checkpoint blockade has undoubtedly improved the lives of some people with advanced cancers such as melanoma and lung cancer, however the number who do achieve complete remission with single agent therapy is low (typically <20%).

In addition, not all people will respond up front while others achieve an objective response then relapse as acquired resistance or immune escape hits.

One challenge facing the field is identifying these mechanisms of resistance and finding the optimal combination approaches that lead to improved outcomes.

This weekend at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) annual meeting, there were quite a few interesting new combination developments with early data.

Here, we take a look at one such combination to explore the data, the biomarker research that is ongoing and also some of the challenges associated with finding needles in the proverbial haystack…

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Over the last four or five weeks we have seen some truly remarkable research published by numerous cancer researchers around the globe… which means that it’s time for another Journal Club review of key research to feature some cool science.

Here, we have selected half a dozen key papers of interest in both solid tumours and hematological malignancies that are well worth reading and digesting.  The impact from many of these may well lead to new molecules being explored.  We also include at least one review paper for BSB readers to peruse.

While much of the focus is inevitably on lung cancer and melanoma of late, we also highlight important research in pancreatic cancer, aggressive lymphomas and AML.

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One of the leaders in the field of neoantigen based cancer vaccine research is Dr Cathy Wu. She’s a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in Boston, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a scientific co-founder of Neon Therapeutics.

Mainz Cathedral

Personalised cancer vaccines are showing exciting promise, and are at the vanguard of what many think of as a renaissance in the field, one that is now attracting the interest of many companies and researchers.

We posted on Neon Therapeutics approach and progress at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference in January, followed by an update on the clinical data from Dr Wu at AACR.

Much has happened since then, however, so it’s a timely juncture to continue the story.

At the recent CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR international cancer immunotherapy conference in Mainz, Dr Wu kindly spoke to BSB about her research, where it’s at, progress to date, and importantly, where things are heading.

This is the first part in our latest mini-series on the future of cancer vaccines.

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