Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Merck’

Chasing the alpha

It’s time to switch horses again and turn our attention to the final ASCO Plenary series of the year with another look at an anti-TIGIT trial.

After all the attention on the Genentech/Roche CITYSCAPE and SKYSCRAPER trials evaluating tiragolumab plus atezolizumab in combination of late, this time around it’s the turn of Arcus and Gilead to be in the hot seat.

In this latest instance they have data from a three arm open label randomised phase 2 study (ARC-7) exploring the Fc silent anti-TIGIT antibody domvanalimab plus zimberelimab, with and without their adenosine axis therapy, etrumadenant, both compared with the anti-PD-1 antibody alone in 1L NSCLC.

The results turned out to be rather controversial for a number of reasons, so let’s take a deeper look at what can be learned and why it matters…

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Seeing the wood from the trees in early stage oncology pipelines

One of the many challenges in the oncology space is seeing the bigger picture of how companies evolve their early stage pipelines.

For some, it’s a bit like taking a walk in the forest and not being able to see the wood from the trees – the targets chosen are rarely random, especially those involving collaborations.  There’s a reason for pursuing a given approach, particularly i it is intended to be employed in combination with an existing, approved therapy.

There are many choices out there and even those with the deepest pockets can’t have everything, so often I’m fascinated by the selections that are taken and how they might fit in.

In our latest company review, we talked to a big pharma company active in the immunotherapy niche and sought to explore the early stage agents they are developing in the context of future doublet and triplet combinations.

Why are they doing what they’re doing and how might their approach be differentiated from others?

To find out more, check out our latest expert interview, which has a few surprises in store…

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Take the high road

We’re at the point in time in the cancer conference calendar where we are rolling out AACR analyses and interviews while also highlighting relevant ASCO abstracts to watch out for.

As a result, I always tend to think of May as the ‘mish mash’ month, to put things in Brit speak.

This isn’t necessarily a negative connotation, by the by, rather it’s a great opportunity to highlight some developments in different niches which tended to be overlooked.

Sometimes new data allows us to put a more coherent picture together or set boundaries around the corporate messaging.

To kick start our ASCO coverage, we’ve taken five phase 1 trials and looked at the pros and cons of each in the context of the underlying science – some come out strongly or understated, others much less so.  It’s important to understand the underpinnings in order to avoid being sucked into the inevitable hype machine accompanying abstracts at this event…

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How – and when – should people with early stage breast cancer be treated with a PARP inhibitor?

We’re going to take a change of pace from our scientific previews from the forthcoming AACR meeting and switch to early stage cancer clinical trials readouts coming out this week.

The first one on deck is an update of the OlympiA trial exploring the PARP inhibitor olaparib as adjuvant therapy after chemotherapy in early stage germline BRCA mutation-positive (gBRCAm) high-risk breast cancer.

This is an important trial to follow given it’s the first of the PARPs to read out in early stage breast cancer in a well defined patient population with a high risk of disease recurrence.

Here, we explore the pros and cons of the latest findings and also put them in context since there’s quite a few important nuances to consider…

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New trials and tribulations in drugging KRAS mutations

Is the ride going to be a thrilling long or disappointingly short one?

The KRAS niche continues to rattle on at an incredible pace with new findings, new trials, or even a new molecular entity (NME) coming along seemingly every month.

In this latest update on the landscape, we discuss some important new findings, as well as a novel agent to thing about in this space, which is quite different from what we have seen before.

To be clear – this doesn’t mean a novel approach doesn’t have any legs, nor that the latest science behind where we should be going with combinations is doomed.  Indeed, sometimes finding a balance is a bit akin to a highwire act.

The important thing is to focus on the learnings and determine where the field might be headed…

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Looking east at a now familiar horizon

Source: TripAdvisor

Over the last couple of years it has taken us until the end of July to rollout all of our coverage of AACR and ASCO, since data often co-mingles across the two key conferences… and this year is no exception to the rule.

Here we digest an early allcomers trial and point out some red and green flags to watch out for as we review some of the highlights in terms of what can be learned and what’s missing, but would be useful to know.

The short answer is there is quite a bit to discuss on both fronts…

 

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ASH20 Preview 2 on Antibodies and ADCs

Upregulation of ligands and receptors provides handy targets for antibodies and ADCs

Anyone who has been casually following oncology R&D over the last five years might be forgiven for thinking the gold rush and panning for nuggets in IO might have overtaken company interest in targeted therapies, whether they be small molecules, antibodies, or ADCs.

As hematologic malignancies evolve, proteins are upregulated on the surface of the cancer cells, providing a variety of novel targets to aim at therapeutically.

For those in the know, however, the quality of research in the targeted niche remains at a very high level with some serious research going on behind the scenes in terms of novel targets, focused clinical developments (i.e. not treating a targeted agent in an untargeted fashion), and even enhanced design of next generation molecules coming to the fore…

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On black holes and rising supernova stars in oncology

Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope

Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope – Image credit: NASA/ESA/P. Jeffries

With the latest Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to three scientists (Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez) for their work on black holes in the galaxy, it occurred to me there are some handy analogies for cancer research and development too.

As NASA aptly put it:

“Every second a star somewhere out in the universe explodes as a supernova. But some extremely massive stars go out with a whimper instead of a bang. When they do, they can collapse under the crushing tug of gravity and vanish out of sight, only to leave behind a black hole.”

Almost every Pharma company with an oncology pipeline is faced with the same fundamental challenge at some point in its life cycle – which ones are the rising stars that could explode as a blockbuster versus which compounds are doomed to vanish and be sucked back into the black hole (aka the screening library)?

Can we always tell from the basis of what are usually relatively simple allcomer trials in phase 1 with dose escalation in advanced solid tumours?

It’s fairly straightforward to tell when something is too toxic for patients to tolerate, as the number of grade 3+ serious events will quickly indicate, but activity isn’t so easy to determine.  This begs an important question to be answered – what are researchers and new product professionals actually looking for and how do they interpret the data?  Are they looking from a similar lens or are there differences in perception, much as a kaleidoscope changes even with the same elements included.

Here we take an in-depth look at a couple of early compounds against targets, which have garnered some attention this year and explore reactions from both sponsor and KOL angles.  As anyone involved in clinical trials knows, not everyone sings from the same hymn sheet every time!

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Highlighting an under-rated clinical development at ASCO20

Embedded deep in any conference database of abstracts are often important findings, which tend to be overlooked by many observers in the rush to focus on the more obvious candidates.

Time to scale the cliff on a previously little known and undruggable target!

This preview and accompanying thought leader interview explores one such underrated avenue of research.

There is a lot to be said when we have clear signals from our knowledge of the underlying biology in front of us because they inform where therapeutic intervention should be both rational and fruitful.

Is this actually the case in practice?

We dug deeper to find out what’s really happening…

To learn more from our oncology analysis and get a heads up on insights and commentary emerging from the ASCO meeting together with our latest KOL interview, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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Putting some colour on the TIGIT niche

Time for some additional colour commentary!

There has been some incredibly intense interest surrounding TIGIT as a new therapeutic target in oncology of late, to the point where some observers have been wildly claiming this is the new universal checkpoint everyone has been waiting for.

But is it?

It’s early days yet with little data presented from people with cancer, so at this point it could well be a bit of a stretch to find another anti-PD–1/PD-L1 equivalent, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t utility in seeing clinical activity in some tumour types, far from it.

In our latest post, we take a look at what’s coming up in the TIGIT niche, along with an interview from a company active in this niche.

What do the company have to say and how do they see this panning out?

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