Biotech Strategy Blog

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

About Pieter Droppert

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Posts by Pieter Droppert

AZD9291 EGFR T790M NSCLC data at European Lung shows longer PFS

Geneva – at the 2015 European Lung Cancer Conference today, Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD presented updated progression free survival and duration of response data for the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291 (AstraZeneca) in patients with EFGR-TKI-resistant advanced non-small cell cancer (Abstract LBA3).

Dr Jänne is Director, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

 

It’s hard to believe that it is only about two years since the first patient was enrolled in the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291, a third generation EGFR inhibitor. If the FDA regulatory submission takes place, as expected, in the second quarter of this year, then the drug could be approved for sale in the United States before the year end.

It has been fascinating to watch the race to market between rociletinib (Clovis Oncology) and AZD9291. It’s likely both could be approved in the United States before the year end.

That would be great news for lung cancer patients, given the absence of any approved therapy for patients who develop a T790M mutation and become resistant to EGFR inhibitors, such as Tarceva and Iressa.

Readers will know that we have been following the phase 1 AURA trial of AZD9291 since ECCO 2013 in Amsterdam, when the first clinical data was presented.

AstraZeneca are to be congratulated on what is a case study of rational scientific drug development; their path to market strategy highlights the benefit of well-designed early clinical trials. AZD9291 may end up receiving regulatory approval less than three years from the start of the first in man trial – that’s tremendous!

I had the privilege to interview Dr Jänne at ASCO last year, and again earlier this week, before he left Boston for Geneva and chatted with him about his AZD9291 presentation at European Lung.

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UCL Drives CD19 CAR T Cell Therapy Forward in Europe

The 2015 Annual Meeting of the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT 2015) was held in Istanbul from March 22-25, where it offered a European perspective on some of the latest developments in cancer immunotherapy. 

We’ve heard a lot in the United States about the early CAR T cell therapy clinical trial results from institutions such as UPenn, CHOP, MSKCC, Fred Hutchinson, Seattle Children’s, the NCI, and MD Anderson to name but a few, so it was good to see a leading a European center join the club: University College London (UCL).

While completing a Masters degree in Human and Applied Physiology at King’s College London, I spent several weeks training at UCL and particularly enjoyed the intercollegiality of the University of London.

At EBMT15, Dr Sara Ghorashian Clinical Training Fellow at the Insitute of Child Health at UCL, presented data on a phase 1 trial of Epstein Barr virus (EBV) specific T cells transduced with a first generation CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR). The trial data was first reported by Dr Ghorashian in an oral presentation at #ASH14 (Abstract 383).

 

Dr Ghorashian stated at EBMT that UCL have several CAR T cell therapy trials planned.

Readers will be aware that earlier this year that UCL spun-off a series A funded company, Autolus, to commercialize their CAR T cell therapy research.

Although £30m from Syncona (a subsidiary of the Wellcome Trust) is not a lot of money by US investment standards, UCL is nonetheless a European center to watch if you have an interest in the CAR-T competitive landscape.

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Impact of TERRAIN trial on European Prostate Cancer treatment landscape #EAU15

Madrid, Spain – the results of the Medivation/Astellas TERRAIN clinical trial of enzalutamide (Xtandi) versus bicalutamide (Casodex) in men with metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) were presented today at the European Association of Urology Congress in Madrid (Twitter #EAU15).

The clinical trial data were presented in a plenary session at EAU15 by Axel Heidenreich (pictured left) who is Professor of Urology & Uro-oncology at the RWTH University and Head of Department & Director of the Urology Program at the University Hospital in Aachen, Germany.

How good are the results, and what impact will they have on the prostate cancer treatment landscape in Europe? Prof Heidenreich kindly spoke with Biotech Strategy Blog (BSB) and shared his thoughts.

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Update May 17, 2015: This post has been updated with the additional TERRAIN trial data presented by Professor Arnauld Villers (Lille) at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in New Orleans.

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CAR-T and Gene Therapy excite BMT Tandem Meeting

It remains exciting times in cancer immunotherapy with breakthrough new cell therapies and checkpoint inhibitors that enhance the effectiveness of T cells.

Last Friday, Paris based Cellectis filed their IPO registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (Link to F-1).

They plan to raise $115M through an offering of American Depository Shares. You can read more about their allogeneic Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell approach in the two interviews we did with senior management last year.

As multiple companies seek to move CAR-T cell therapies forward in clinical trials, what will be interesting to see is how this novel treatment fits in with existing therapies such as bone marrow transplants. Will it replace them, or be a bridge to a transplant that enables relapsed or refractory patients to have a second chance?

In addition, where are the potential opportunities beyond B-cell malignancies such as acute lymphoid leukemia (ALL) where there’s been dramatic success, particularly in children?

Last week Biotech Strategy Blog had the privilege to interview Dr Krishna Komanduri who is Director of the Adult Stem Cell Transplant Program at the University of Miami Sylvester Cancer Center and holds the Kalish Family Chair in Stem Cell Transplantation.

A physician scientist, he exudes a sense of calm professionalism – I am sure this must reassure many of his patients. Having a bone marrow transplant has been likened to jumping off a cliff in terms of what it does to one’s immune system.

In the last 2-3 years, he has dramatically increased the number of transplants at the University of Miami Sylvester Cancer Center.

Dr Komanduri (@DrKomanduri) was co-chair of the 2015 BMT Tandem meeting that took place earlier this month in San Diego. It’s the combined annual meeting of the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASMBT) and the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR).

In a half hour interview he shared his thoughts on what was exciting at Tandem, where the field is going and some of the best abstracts at the meeting which included data on CAR-T cell therapy, GVHD and gene therapy.

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CAR-T Cell Therapies from China are a Competitive Threat

The announcement earlier this week that Cellular Biomedicine Group (NASDAQ: CBMG) has acquired rights to the Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy of the PLA General Hospital in Beijing should come as no surprise to industry watchers. (Link to Press Release).

The share price in $CBMG has risen from $16.31 on February 4 to $23.60 as of close of business on Feb 10, 2015 in what looks like a poorly kept secret!  It looks like most of the rise in share price took place immediately prior to the company’s formal Feb 9, 2015 announcement of the Chinese deal.

Those following the cancer immunotherapy space have known for some time that several Chinese groups are working on CAR-T cell therapies that could be a threat if licensed or acquired.

Given the significant investor interest in this space, which is almost bordering on “tulip mania,” it’s entirely foreseeable that companies looking to share in this opportunity would go looking towards China.

One investor on Twitter in response to this news asked should Chinese data be trusted?

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Yumanity hopes to impact humanity – an interview with Dr Susan Lindquist

We recently wrote about Syros Pharmaceuticals, one of whose founders, Dr Rick Young is based at the Whitehead Institute of MIT in Cambridge MA.

Another biopharma start-up company being spun out from research done at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is Yumanity Therapeutics.

The company recently launched with Tony Coles as CEO and Ken Rhodes as Chief Scientific Officer. Their focus is on transforming drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding.

The scientific founder is Dr Susan Lindquist, who spoke with Biotech Strategy Blog about her research and the Yumanity approach to drug development.

The company is committed to “improving human conditions. That’s why we call it Yumanity. The Y is for yeast, but it really is focused on humanity,” said Lindquist.

Dr Linquist started her interview by noting that as we live longer, we are more likely to get neurodegenerative diseases, starkly noting the reality of the lack of progress in drug development in this area:

“There is really, right now, nothing that we can do about them. We just do not understand how to move the needle on these and it’s really becoming an absolute crisis and it is taking a very substantial section of our healthcare budget as it is. As we continue to make better inroads against cancer and HIV and all of the other ills of mankind, it’s just going to get worse, I think. Everybody is beginning to appreciate that there is going to be an economic disaster and that we are going to ruining the next generation in a way that, at this point, is going to be tragic.”

So what is the approach Yumanity is taking, in the hope of succeeding where others have failed?

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Bellicum moves BPX-501 T Cell Therapy forward $BLCM

Several subscribers have written to ask what we think of Houston based Bellicum Pharmaceuticals?

Bellicum is a company that along with Novartis, Kite, Juno and Cellectis has a Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy in development, amongst other things.

Readers already know the company had a successful IPO in December (NASDAQ: BLCM) and were reported to have raised $140M to fund future development.

This morning, the company announced enrollment of the first cohort of pediatric patients in a phase 1/2 dose escalation trial of BPX-501 (link to press release). This T cell therapy aims to mitigate the risk of graft versus host disease (GvHD) after an allogeneic haploid hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

BSB spoke with Bellicum CEO Tom Farrell and COO Dr Annemarie Moseley to answer some of the questions we think subscribers would like to know more about such as:

  • Market opportunity for BPX-501
  • Mechanism of action of BPX-501
  • Strategic direction the company is taking
  • Vision with regards to its CAR-T development
  • Milestones expected in 2015

We’ve provided some additional commentary on the challenges and opportunities Bellicum may face in the GvHD market and how we think the company stacks up against the competition in the CAR-T space. Be warned this piece is a long read: 6,000+ words!

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Cellectis ramps up CAR-T development in 2015

Readers don’t need Biotech Strategy Blog to tell them that Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy (CAR-T), along with Checkpoint blockade, is one of the hottest areas of cancer drug development.

The last two days have seen pre #JPM15 deal activity with Kite Pharmaceuticals ($KITE) announcing a commercial collaboration with Amgen ($AMGN), which is not surprising given several of the Kite senior management team previously worked at the company.

Meanwhile, both Seattle based Juno Therapeutics ($JUNO) and Houston based Bellicum Pharmaceuticals ($BLCM) had successful IPO’s at the end of 2014. Interestingly, Bellicum are initially focusing most of their IPO funds, not on bringing their CAR-T to market, but on a novel cell therapy post stem cell transplant that aims to lower graft versus host disease (GvHD). GvHD is something we’ve been writing about regularly here!

Just this morning we’ve seen yet more CAR-T activity, with European Cardio3Biosciences (Euronext Brussels and Paris: CARD) acquiring the CAR-T technology of Oncyte (the oncology division of privately-held U.S. biotechnology company Celdara Medical).

There’s certainly a lot of activity in the CAR-T space and I expect we will hear more at next week’s JP Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco (#JPM15). One player in the CAR-T space who has not been gaining as much attention, and one that I think should not be dismissed, is Paris based Cellectis (Alternext: ALCLS.PA), who struck deals with both Servier and Pfizer last year. In June, BSB went to Paris and interviewed Chairman and CEO André Choulika, PhD and CSO Philippe Duchateau, PhD.

At the recent American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting in San Francisco, Julianne Smith, PhD (pictured below), Vice President CART Development at Cellectis, gave an in-depth interview to BSB.

Some key questions to address here are what are some of the important milestones for Cellectis in 2015 and and what makes the Cellectis CAR-T approach different from other companies in this space?

Update Nov 7: This post now has two updates relating to the important news that came out after this post was published concerning the issuance by the USPTO of a gene editing patent that covers Cellectis’ intellectual property. 

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Targeting the unmet medical need in GvHD

T cell activation has been very much to the fore over the last couple of years with many companies looking at different ways to use them against cancer cells, with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, vaccines or monoclonal antibodies. There are situations though, where T cells are not necessarily a good thing.

Graft versus Host disease (GvHD) is an area of tremendous unmet medical need that is triggering the interest of a number of biotech and rare disease companies such as Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN).

Houston based Bellicum Pharmaceuticals (BLCM), whose IPO raised around $140M last month, have said they plan to spend most of the funds on bringing to market a new cell therapy that could make stem cell transplants more effective and reduce GvHD. They also have a CAR-T therapy in early development.

Indeed, at last month’s ASH 2014 annual meeting in San Francisco, GvHD was very much a hot topic, with data presented in the plenary session by Dr Wei Li on a novel biomarker for GI GvHD.

 

This post discusses one of the GvHD oral sessions at ASH 2014, and includes post-presentation commentary from Dr Marcel van den Brink, who is an expert in the area. The related interview Dr Brink kindly gave BSB at the SITC annual meeting is well worth reading if you missed it.

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ASH 2014 Day 3 Live blog #ASH14

San Francisco – “Manic Monday” is what I call Monday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. It’s when the majority of oral presentations take place in multiple parallel sessions that require you to run between meeting rooms if you want to follow a particular drug across different blood cancers.

It’s even more challenging this year by the fact the conference is in three buildings at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. While Moscone North and South are interconnected thanks to an underground atrium, to get to sessions in Moscone West from North/South you have to go out of the building, cross one or two main roads, then go up elevators to the second or third floors. Not ideal! I think ASH is now too big for the venue.

Looking back on yesterday, it was a privilege to be in the audience when Dr Kanti Rai received a well-deserved lifetime achievement award for his work in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). A visibily moved Dr Rai was given a standing ovation by the thousands present in the plenary hall.

 

Expect the #ASH14 Twitter stream today to be like opening the tap to run a bath. I congratulate all the hematology experts who have shared data and commentary from sessions via social media. #ASH14 stands out in terms of expert engagement and a high signal to noise ratio.

If there was an award for best conference coverage of #ASH14 on Twitter I would nominate @drmiguelperales.

Not only does Dr Perales from Sloan-Kettering share tweets from the sessions that he is in that are accurate and informative, but he frequently offers links to relevant papers for those that want to learn more. In addition to showcasing his expertise, this is a really good way to use social media to educate and inform. I look forward to his commentary, particularly if I am in another session at ASH. A must follow on Twitter!

To the extent possible we’ll be providing updates to today’s live blog throughout the date, subscribers can login to read more or you can purchase access by clicking on the blue icon at the end.

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