Biotech Strategy Blog

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

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Posts by MaverickNY

Divvying it up at ASCO23

There’s more than one way to look at data despite the same top line results

Beyond the obvious, what else was coming out at ASCO this year?

It’s time to divvy up the spoils and explore some intriguing trial results not in the mainstream consciousness.

Well there is one major trial we critique in this latest review, although perhaps with a rather different take on the data as it could be considered in a more controversial light when you look at the details.

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Are the lions roaring in Chicago?

Are the lions roaring in Chicago?

In our latest coverage from the annual meeting at ASCO we explore and discuss some of the highlights from Day 1 of the meeting.

It used to be Friday was reserved for the educational events and Saturday was the start of various oral sessions.

Increasingly, the meeting has now become so jam packed we now see a number of tumour type oral sessions on Friday and a wave of posters on Saturday.

We asked ourselves what were the controversies and findings that stood out from pack and why do they matter?

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Battle lines drawn in adjuvant breast cancer

There’s no ASCO meeting without the Bean

After a long wait and much anticipation, the NATALEE late breaker results are finally in!

In this adjuvant breast cancer study involving Stage II/III disease, ribociclib was added to standard endocrine therapy (ET).

We have already seen the equivalent readouts from Pfizer and Lilly, with very different outcomes.

The Novartis trial followed same the positive trend as the Lilly study, but what about the subtleties and nuances involved?

Here we put the NATALEE trial through its paces and discuss the ins and outs relative to the niche…

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Intriguing progress on the KRAS front

Tackling intractable targets and tumour escape/evasion

Understanding clonal evolution ought to be an essential part of figuring out how to tackle intractable or tricky targets such as KRAS.

Inevitably chronic treatment with monotherapy will exert selective pressure on a given tumour so it reacts by escaping and signalling elsewhere in order to ensure its continued survival.

If we add in another agent, it may work for a while and then the same thing happens again.

What if we could break out of this cycle and try some novel approaches, find more potent agents, or even rational combinations to try and box in the resistance?

In our third ASCO Preview we take a look at some of the progress being made and where things might be headed in the near to medium term future…

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On TIGIT, ADCs, and other stories

Some ASCO23 abstracts to grab your attention!

As we head into the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), it’s time to review some key abstracts which may grab your attention.

Of course not all of these will be positive in nature, yet some are already planned for phase 3 investigation on the basis of some rather skimpy early data…

While at the other end of the extreme are some important data largely under many people’s radar.

Here we highlight a dozen examples of what’s coming this weekend, explain what to watch out for and offer some important caveats or questions to think about.

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Chemistry in context – next generation cell therapies

Roses in the Marie Curie garden

If a Nobel Prize for cancer cell therapy is awarded – and at BSB we wouldn’t be surprised to see this happening at some point in the future – then there’s a good chance it would be awarded in Chemistry and not Medicine or Physiology.

The discovery and development of novel constructs, novel targets, coupled with the application of gene editing and synthetic biology, is very much a case of chemistry in context.

The development of CAR T cell therapy is making rapid progress and already we are seeing glimpses of potential next generation therapies with very different looks from the currently approved products.

In this post we highlight several catching our attention, for good and not so good reasons…

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From far away you see more

The ‘Friendly Alien’

Von weit weg sieht man mehr (from far away you see more) is the title of an exhibition at the Kunsthaus Graz, an iconic modern art museum known as the “Friendly Alien” for its cutting edge design akin to a space ship which has landed in the city.

The same concept could also apply to cell therapy, as well as oncology new product development in general.

It’s all too easy to get bogged down in the weeds and   overwhelmed by detail – sometimes you need to step back to look from the distance to see more clearly and, in particular, the innovation or evolution currently happening in the field.

Some developments might look relatively small or even curious in nature, yet can turn out to be surprisingly ahead of their time, while others may portend issues ahead for the wise.

In this latest post, we take a look at a variety of novel CAR-T cell therapies involving some more unusual targets or designs and discuss some of the challenges and opportunities they face.

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The weird, the wild, and the wonderful

Seeing a Nawlins style paddle boat on a river in Germany is kind of weird, wild, and wonderful all at once!

Following the ESMO Breast Cancer conference in Berlin this weekend, we have some data we’d like to draw your attention to.

These are also key topics for discussion in the broader context of what’s happening in advanced breast cancer and where the field is (or perhaps ought to be) heading next.

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Early research which points us to new cancer therapeutic opportunities

Have you ever wondered why some anti-cancer agents do well and others poorly – even with similar modalities or approaches?

The devil is often in the details, whether it be a different trial design, target or modality, or even in several molecules against the same target where the conformation might offer a subtle yet important variation because it hit the right cell/right compartment.

In our latest post we review three emerging targets and explore how new data may change the way we go about tackling the disease with novel therapeutics.

The examples are all from creative and innovative scientists who set out to better understand the underlying biology in order to improve on what can be done in the clinic.

Begin with the end in mind is often an obvious and yet smart strategy few people do really well…

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Heading to the stars in RAS driven cancers

Hubble image, as seen at the Hamburg Planetarium

If you visit your local Planetarium, you’ll notice the night sky and how both the brightness and closeness of stars are constantly changing with the seasons and orbits of planets.

Like oncology drug development, it’s a dynamic, constantly moving environment.

Some companies shine brightly for a while then fizzle out, others take a while to show up in the night sky depending on which direction observers are looking in.

In this post we’re taking a closer look at an early stage biotech with an innovative approach to targeting KRAS.  Will it be a future star?

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