Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts from the ‘Prostate Cancer’ category

Potential of a Novel Non-Invasive Liquid Biopsy Prostate Cancer Biomarker

San Francisco Cable CarWe’re continuing our post-meeting coverage of the 2016 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (ASCO GU) that took place earlier this month in San Francisco.

In this post we’re taking a look at the results of a clinical trial with a non-invasive liquid biopsy which in a cohort of patients with prostate cancer identified increased risk of death on abiraterone and enzalutamide, but not taxane chemotherapy.

What struck me listening to this presentation was the simple elegance of an approach, which the presenter likened to the equivalent of “facial recognition” of prostate cancer cells.

As the ASCO GU discussant noted, this could have an impact on clinical trial design, potentially leading to more rapid prostate cancer drug approvals.

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New combinations and targets in advanced prostate cancer

Alcatraz San FranciscoIn yesterday’s post on novel targets in advanced prostate cancer, we looked at a potential new concept that is emerging and being evaluated in clinical trials.

Today, we continue that approach with a look at another novel – and quite different target – as well as ways of repurposing old drugs to help potentially overcome the drug resistance seen with newer therapies for this disease.

Warning: the concepts discussed here may well take you by surprise, although they are based on rational and logical evidence from recent scientific research.

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A New Race to Market in Advanced Prostate Cancer

Coit Tower San FranciscoAt the recent ASCO 2016 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (ASCO GU) that took place in San Francisco the week before the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM), one of the noteworthy presentations was on a novel target for men with advanced prostate cancer.

While JPM may have been a “dud” for many, several companies did take the opportunity to update and discuss their corporate strategy going into 2016, which gave a surprising amount to comment on in our 3 blog posts from the meeting: JPM Day 1, JPM Day 2, JPM Day 3.

In this post we look at the “take homes” from the ASCO GU presentation, and what looks like it could be a new race to market.

It’s good to see novel targets for men with advanced prostate cancer, and potential new treatment options on the horizon!

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Future of Prostate Cancer Immunotherapy

Immune checkpoint inhibitors that target CTLA4, PD1 and PDL1 can generate prolonged responses in a minority of patients, but the results so far in prostate cancer have been disappointing. Prostate cancer doctors have not been part of the excitement spreading through the cancer community like a “Mexican wave.”

Prostate cancer has not featured significantly in the cancer immunotherapy news recently, but that’s not to say there is not a lot going on. The phase 3 trial results of ipilimumab (a checkpoint inhibitor of CTLA-4) in the pre-chemotherapy setting of advanced prostate cancer (NCT01057810) are expected soon and there is also the eagerly awaited phase 3 trial of the PROSTVAC vaccine (NCT01322490).

Dr James Gulley ASCO 2015

At ASCO 2015, BSB interviewed Dr James L. Gulley, MD, PhD Chief of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch and Director of the Medical Oncology Service at the National Cancer Institute (pictured above).

He talked about some of the cancer vaccine work he has done as part of the CRADA (Cooperative Research and Development Agreement) between the NCI and Bavarian Nordic, as well as strategies to help immunotherapy work in those tumors such as prostate cancer that are non-inflamed, where there may be an insufficient immune response for checkpoint inhibitors to work effectively.

Readers may recall we interviewed him at ASCO GU earlier year, “How to make non-immunogenic cancer sensitive to checkpoint inhibitors.” His outstanding work could shape the future of prostate cancer immunotherapy.

This post also includes additional ASCO 2015 commentary on from Dr Oliver Sartor, Professor of Cancer Research at Tulane University, who shared his perspective on the ipilimumab and PROSTVAC phase 3 prostate cancer trials that are due to readout soon.

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Enzalutamide blows Bicalutamide out of the water in STRIVE trial at AUA15

Medivation-LogoNew Orleans – in today’s plenary session at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Urological Association (Twitter: #AUA15), Dr Celestia Higano (Seattle), presented the results of the STRIVE trial (NCT01664923) – a multicenter phase 2 study of enzalutamide (Xtandi) versus bicalutamide in men with nonmetastatic (M0) or metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (M1). These were men who were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.

Dr Celestia Higano STRIVE AUA 2015

Dr Higano noted that this was a very late breaking abstract; topline results were only announced a little over a month ago on April 2.

The TERRAIN trial also compared the efficacy of enzalutamide head-to-head against bicalutamide. We’ve updated our EAU 2015 TERRAIN post with the additional data presented here at AUA 2015 in New Orleans.

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EAU 2015 Update on enzalutamide PREVAIL trial in advanced prostate cancer

PREVAIL trial EAU 2015We’ve been following the updates on the PREVAIL study evaluating enzalutamide (Xtandi) versus placebo in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) in the pre-chemotherapy setting for a while now. It’s interesting to see how the data evolves over time as it becomes more mature.

The first presentation, back in January 2014 at ASCO GU by Dr Tom Beer (OHSU) reported on the first 540 deaths and was subsequently followed by an update of the survival data at AUA in May of the same year by Dr Chris Evans (UCLA).

This morning at the European Urology Association (EAU) in Madrid in the late breaking session on prostate cancer, the honour fell to Professor Bertrand Tombal (Leuven), who did a very nice job of reviewing the mature PREVAIL data (based on 765 deaths) and providing some context for how the CRPC landscape is being impacted by AR pathway inhibitors.

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

EAU 2015 LogoMadrid, 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).

Professor Dr. med. Axel Heidenreich. Credit: Universitätsklinikum Aachen

Credit: Universitätsklinikum Aachen

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.

Prof Arnauld Villers presents TERRAIN trial data at AUA 2015

Prof Arnauld Villers presents TERRAIN trial data at AUA 2015

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How to make non-immunogenic cancers sensitive to checkpoint inhibitors

We have been following the results of the checkpoint inhibitors for several years now, first with ipilimumab (Yervoy) and lately with anti-PD1 and PD-L1 inhibitors such as nivolumab, pembrolizumab and MPDL3280A. Irrespective of the antibody used, the best results we’ve seen have in melanoma, lung and bladder, but some tumour types such as colon and prostate cancers have barely been responsive at all.

Why is that?

Can we find ways to make non-responsive solid tumours responsive to immune therapies, and if so, what strategies could we employ to enable improved responses and outcomes?

At the ASCO Genitourinary (GU) meeting in Orlando this weekend there were some interesting hints of what might be possible in the not too distant future.

To learn more about this phenomenon, we conducted an interview with a leading cancer immunologist to find out what they are doing to make a difference in the GU space.

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Is AR-V7 a useful predictive biomarker in advanced prostate cancer

After the intensity of gastrointestinal cancer, we now turn our attention to genitourinary (GU) cancers with the upcoming ASCO GU meeting later this week in Orlando.

Two of the big topics here will be prostate and renal cell (RCC) cancers.

Unfortunately, the long awaited data in adjuvant RCC demonstrated that early treatment with sorafenib or sunitinib did not improve outcomes in locally advanced kidney cancer after resection. According to the ASCO press release, the trial conducted by Dr Haas and colleagues at U Penn discovered that:

“The average period to disease recurrence was similar between those who received sorafenib or sunitinib after surgery (5.6 years) and those treated with placebo (5.7 years).”

We will therefore turn our attention to castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

One of the recent and ongoing controversies is splice variants, especially AR-V7, which is thought by some research groups to confer resistance to the hormonal therapies, enzalutamide and abiraterone. The big question though, is does it, and how useful is an assay in helping to determine appropriate therapy? Are there other factors at play?

We looked at the latest data and put the findings in context with what we know from other published research.

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Enzalutamide beats bicalutamide in advanced prostate cancer

Medivation-LogoThere’s nothing better than seeing good news in the early morning email alerts I have set up on cancer research!

 

astellas-logo-no-sloganToday, it was the turn of Astellas and Medivation to announce the results of the TERRAIN study, which is a primarily European phase 2 trial that began in March 2011 in the prechemotherapy setting for castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The trial met its primary endpoint of progression free survival (PFS).

 

Why is this an important landmark in CRPC and what does the initial data show?

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