Biotech Strategy Blog

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

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ESMO Preview 2 – Making sense of controversy

Plaza de Cibeles, Madrid

In our latest ESMO preview series, we selected a modality to focus on and explore the potential opportunities and challenges many will face in the clinic.

There are a number of issues to address in this space:

  • Will new developments in technical design features help us see more agents over the finish line or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes of past?
  • As we see a much broader range of targets being evaluated, will this help or hinder the process?
  • What factors need to see improvement if we want to increase the number of Health Authority approvals?

There is no doubt the face of oncology R&D is changing – will recent successes help others over the line as well?  To find out, we looked a large number of abstracts and selected some for discussion.

Here are our insights on the current state of play…

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ESMO23 Preview 1 – Hype over Hope?

Are you ready for ESMO23 in Madrido?!

It’s time to kick off our latest meeting previews highlighting some of the research being presented at the upcoming ESMO23 cancer conference in Madrid.

In the first of the series we take a critical look at some of the verbiage being used in the abstract titles and examine whether or not they hold up under the microscope.

We found some of the research doesn’t appear to actually represent major scientific advances, despite being labelled as such.

The key takeaway here is claims should be carefully scrutinised when evaluating early stage cancer research. Hard data and rigour are still essential to determine if something represents a real therapeutic advance versus hype.

The provocative question we address for readers is which abstracts fall into which category?

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Early stage oncology data of interest in TARGETS23 preview

Out with the old, in with the new

We’re reaching a turning point in oncology R&D.

More companies are looking to switch attention from classic, well established targets where there is so much competition it’s hard to differentiate to difficult, even intractable targets with significantly less competition.

To achieve this switch we need to find not only new targets, but also different modalities.

One way to go about bridging this switch is to develop molecular glues.

The magic of chemical induced proximity with this approach means there’s no linkerology involved, simplifying the design somewhat.

Here we look at what some companies are doing in this niche from targets to platforms and collaborations through to exploring what’s coming at the TARGETS meeting in Boston next month. There’s an added bonus included with some unexpected developments…

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Gunning for new targets, new approaches

Gunning for new targets, new modalities, and fresh directions

As we look at various emerging early stage oncology pipelines and think about future rising stars, there are a few which stand out for their sheer depth and breadth.

There are some intriguing similarities between them in they have forged multiple collaborations with selective young biotechs over the last few years rather than rely solely on in-house production.

In our latest review, we look at one of these companies and discuss how the various pillars they have chosen to focus on not only fit together, but also lend themselves to cross modality fusion.

The end result is a vibrant pipeline capable of fueling their life cycle management portfolio for quite a few years to come…

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What science tells us about future directions in lung cancer

The World Conference on Lung Cancers (WCLC) annual meeting in Singapore showcased important scientific findings illuminating new directions against these deadly diseases.

While some clinical presentations fell a little short of expectations, smaller sessions revealed some important gems illustrating the intricacies of lung cancer biology where art and science intersect.

In the end lung cancer remains complex, heterogeneous, often aggressive, and evolving. Emerging translational research undoubtedly brings hope towards guiding more targeted therapeutic strategies.

The art is in creatively leveraging emerging science to tackle these lethal diseases from every angle.

Here we highlight seven areas where we ought to be paying attention to when considering future directions in lung cancer…

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Kicking KRAS to the kerb

Singapore – host for WCLC23

In our second post from the World Congress on Lung Cancer (WCLC) being held in Asia this year, we review over half a dozen datasets on KRAS developments.

Here we cover preclinical and clinical updates, monotherapy and combinations, as well as some likely future directions based on emerging data…

For the record there were also a couple of controversial surprises in store this year…

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WCLC23 – SCLC highlights and lowlights

Can we see the wood from the trees in ES-SCLC?

Much of the noise and attention in lung cancer is usually focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at cancer conferences.

While it has a greater prevalence than its more difficult to treat cousin, small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), the good news is there are now quite a few emerging novel agents and targets being evaluated in this disease.

Here we highlight and discuss some of the progress being made (or not) in the context of the broader landscape…

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Adding up the evidence

Is the emerging early stage myeloma landscape as bleak as Titan in Clydebank?

For years we have seen much of the therapeutic research in multiple myeloma concentrated on three main categories:

  • Proteasome inhibitors
  • IMiDs
  • Anti-CD38 antibodies

Then came a raft of anti- BCMA and GPRC5D targeted approaches in various forms, but what else should we be looking out for?

It turns out there’s quite a few contenders of interest – we cover some of them in our latest look at early stage compounds to watch out for…

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Targeted Therapy Trials: Why some drug developers keep missing the mark

Post Banksy exhibition – Wellington has now gained an extra cone. It reminds me of what cell/compartment should we be targeting in oncology trials.

Some of the challenges with personalised medicine is we often see companies either treating a targeted therapy in an untargeted fashion thereby diluting the signal or enriching for one not yet conclusively and clinically established.

In both cases, the results are inevitably suboptimal.

Additionally, not all drugs within the same category are the same.  They often have dissimilar scaffolds or target different cells and compartments, all of which can have a positive or negative impact on clinical outcomes.

In our latest post, we explore and discuss emerging insights around strategies undertaken in clinial trials and how they may offer some clues for certain company readouts over the next quarter…

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Taking Myeloma by the Horns

The recent failure of the British Air Traffic Control System brought home to many the importance of flight plans and how easily and suddenly things can change.

Knowing the direction and waypoints a journey will take, allows travel to be co-ordinated across countries, as well as in combination with others.

The same idea applies to complex diseases such as multiple myeloma where we see treatment regimens evolve as new therapeutic modalities such as CAR-T cells or bispecific T cell engagers come to market and new clinical trial data is published.

Highland cows with horns are a fearsome lot!

With a raft of new data coming out post-pandemic, experts are starting to piece together new treatment plans and thoughts about where the field is going.

BSB will be at ASH23 in San Diego this year, so consider this post our first preview of some of the discussions and challenges we expect to hear about in multiple myeloma.

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