Biotech Strategy Blog

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

About MaverickNY

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Posts by MaverickNY

Pulling a rabbit out of a hat

It’s time to tackle some controversies in advanced prostate cancer and look at exactly who’s pulling a rabbit out of a hat?

At ASCO GU we saw new phase 3 data from the 1L metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) setting with very different results produced for olaparib and niraparib, generating quite a bit of debate.

Here we explore half a dozen key issues in the context of both trials and look under the skin at the important subtleties and nuances to think about…

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Sotorasib impresses unexpectedly in pancreatic cancer

It’s time to go through the keyhole and take a look at progress with the KRASG12C inhibitors beyond lung cancer.

Years ago, there really wasn’t much hope in pancreatic cancer – it was an area big Pharma avoided because just about nothing worked well.  But those were the days of chemotherapy and promiscuous dirty kinases akin to a blunderbuss approach.

As we learn more about the biology of the disease and develop more selective inhibitors against oncogenes known to be active, have things improved at all?

In our latest cancer conference Preview, we pivot from a cell therapy meeting to the ASCO plenary series and take a look at how Amgen’s sotorasib is doing outside of lung cancer, an area where Mirati’s adagrasib was thought by some to have an advantage.

It’s always tricky to make judgment calls on the basis of a few patients in a catch all phase 1 trial – sometimes it’s better to wait until there’s a larger sample in a given cohort before rushing to declare winners and losers.

Often though, the data is something of a kaleidoscope – it depends on which angle or lens you view the data from.

In this post we include some expert reaction and commentary too…

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Olaparib drives earlier and deeper responses in mCRPC

With two oncology data drops running this week in the ASCO Plenary session plus the GU sympoisum, it’s time to switch our attention from cell therapy novelties to new developments in targeted therapies.

In this discussion, we take a look at an important phase 3 trial readout being presented this week in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

For far too long the GU oncologist’s choices were pretty much limited to androgen receptor (AR) antagonists such as enzalutamide and abiraterone and chemotherapy (docetaxel and cabazitaxel).

Then along came PARP inhibitors such as olaparib, rucaparib, and more recently niraparib, largely limited to men with homologous recombination repair deficiencies who had received prior therapy, with the first two receiving full or accelerated approval in first half of 2020 on the basis of the PROfound and TRITON2 studies, respectively.

The third PARPi is further behind the others, finally just publishing their phase 2 monotherapy data from GALAHAD earlier this month.

Now there’s a new phase 3 data readout to explore and consider in the context of earlier in the disease setting…

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5 strategies for overcoming challenges to CAR-T cells in solid tumours with CAR-T cells

It’s time to talk about tackling solid tumours with CAR-T cell therapies.  In the past, this has been a challenging area with few or modest responses seen in people with advanced cancers.

As researchers go back to basics and think about both improving on the CAR construct design as well as fine tuning of the various elements, I am pleased to say things are finally looking a bit more upbeat on both sides of the pond.

Here we describe five very different strategies research groups are taking with a variety of different solid tumour targets and cancer types.

Some of these examples are already being evaluated in early stage studies in the clinic, while others have gone through their paces in terms of optimising performance and are about to head in this direction…

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Novel ways to enhance CAR-T cell performance

In part 2 of the highlights from day 1 of the EHA/EBMT CAR-T cell meeting, we take a look at some of the emerging science discussed during some of the sessions and how the research might help drive novel and innovative approaches forward in the future.

It can be scary jumping into the unknown!

We’ve heard much about all the phase 3 clinical trials in lymphomas and multiple myeloma of late, yet what about new research which is helping to inform and improve performance of new CAR constructs?

In this latest discussion, we highlight some of the promising scientific concepts, which are emerging and could end up being incorporated into new CAR-T cell therapies down the road in order to address and tackle some of the current weaknesses…

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Challenges and opportunities with CAR-T cell therapies

Are we putting the cart before the horse – yea or neigh?

We’ve been following and writing about the CAR-T cell therapy space for over a decade now, with plenty of trials and tribulations along the way for both products and companies alike.

With the fanfare around the latest Penn data on Friday, we’re going to take a slightly different approach from the lay media and explore some of the ins and outs around the big strategic picture.

We’ll also be looking at some new data on multiple myeloma and CAR-T cell therapies. The latter are seeing the emergence of some interesting early studies of late…

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Learning from what patients tumours are telling us

There’s gold in dem hills

Some time ago in an interview with a well regarded cancer expert, the topic of learning more from patients tumours came up, and with it some of the challenges inherent in the process, such as access to biopsy samples.

If you think about, while post mortems can tell us why an individual person’s lesions stopped responding to a particular therapy, it’s only when we have huge broad (many tumour types) and deep (primary and metastatic lesions) in datasets with a richness of data that we can truly learn about patterns and trends.

What truly drives metastases and when?  Can we determine novel and more accurate biomarkers earlier than we currently have?

There’s plenty of gold nuggets to be found in the latest genomics research…

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Hunting novel oncology targets

Source: Wikipedia

Today is Groundhog day in America, where an over large rodent is brought out as a seer of sorts to determine whether there is an early or late spring, depending on whether he sees his shadow or not.

The most famous character is Punxsutawny Phil in deepest Pennsylvania, who did indeed, see his shadow this year.

Of course, the scientist in me wonders every year if anyone has ever examined his annual predictions and determined the accuracy of his sage answers?

The metaphor might also seem somewhat apt on several fronts in the context of cancer research…

Firstly, there’s the obvious allusion to the dreaded shadow on scans and suchlike.

Secondly, I think many of us get very tired of so many companies jumping on the bandwagon and chasing the same old same old targets, like lemmings off a cliff or even… Groundhog day.

Thus I’m totally going to break with tradition and talk about a potential new onco target instead…

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Doubling down on modest data

In our latest post we’re going to explore some controversial data and look at various aspects surrounding the presentation and company messaging.

We don’t always highlight positive or even negative data – often in phase 1 or 2 trials the data is limited or mixed and companies have to make difficult decisions on whether to proceed with new product development based on imperfect or incomplete information.

Let’s also not forget there’s more than one way to string a molecule together and sometimes what failed in the past can receive a new lease of life with greater selectivity, switching binding substrates, or taking a different approach to modalities, for example.

For big Pharmas, it’s much easier to put projects in an ‘on hold’ bucket while they pursue more promising opportunities, whereas for small biotechs with limited cash flow they often have no choice but to keep going with the hype machine, especially if there’s little else in the immediate pipeline…

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Science drives innovation

With the increasing pipeline of novel targeted and IO agents emerging from company pipelines these days, one key question which often comes up is can we get rid of chemotherapy – even in the first line setting?

On the upside, many patients would likely prefer to avoid chemotherapy treatment where at all possible, but on the downside, most of these agents are now available cheaply as generics and switching in another therapy doesn’t mean the absence of any additional side effects, just different ones.

During the 2022–2023 time frame we are going to see a surge in IO-IO readouts from both phase 2 and 3 trials as the data begin to mature over time.

In our latest look at IO combination strategies, we take a look at one such approach and examine the pros and cons involved based on the data available…

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