Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts from the ‘Hematology’ category

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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Lessons learned from phase 1 oncology trials

One of the big challenges with cancer research is sorting out the wheat from the chaff in terms of viable targets.

If you think about it, just as we have drivers and passengers in traditional targeted therapy approaches to consider, there are also valid targets versus markers in immuno-oncology too.

We have written quite a bit about novel targeted therapy approaches of late and now it’s time to switch to IO again.

Sometimes aiming at a particular target might lead to a series of rather disappointing results in certain tumour types, yet suddenly looks much more intriguing and useful in a quite different setting.

We’ve talked about finding the sweet spot in aiming at the right cell, right compartment quite a bit on BSB, and this latest example certainly fits into this category…

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Strategic direction and future impacts in multiple myeloma

Shining a light on hidden gems in the myeloma niche

If we want to go beyond the proteasome inhibitors, IMiDs and anti-CD38 antibodies in multiple myeloma, there are plenty of emerging candidates these days.

This is excellent news, but how will it all fit together, and which gems were under-rated at the recent ASH meeting?

The latter may catch a few people by surprise when the clinical aspects are considered in the totality of what needs to be done and in which patient subsets.

We discuss near and medium term aspects, which may have a lasting impact and also talk about why they matter.

To find out, the final part of our myeloma mini-series offers an engaging and thoughtful fireside chat with a global thought leader in this niche…

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How bispecifics will make an impact in myeloma

With all the time and attention surrounding the BCMA-based products in multiple myeloma, including ADCs and CAR-T cell therapies, it’s easy to forget there are other approaches coming down the pike.

Building new mosaics and novel regimens in myeloma is coming

Beyond the hullabaloo there are various bispecific antibodies and T cell engagers in early stage development – not only is the modality different, but the targets might differ too.

How are all of these novel approaches doing in the clinic and how might they all fit together in future regimens? The myeloma world as we know it of proteasome inhibitors and IMiDs may not yet be a thing of the past, but the landscape is certainly changing.

In our third installment of the myeloma mini-series, we tackle these issues and look at near and medium term strategic directions, which can be considered and how these might impact different combination approaches and lines of therapy in order to further improve outcomes in this disease.

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Looking through the window at the cilta-cel data

As part of our latest mini-series focusing on multiple myeloma, yesterday we looked at the BMS approach to tackling multiple myeloma with a variety of different modalities against BCMA and other targets.

Today it’s the turn of J&J’s Janssen to be in the BSB hot seat.

In the first part of the company interview today, we take a look at their current and strategic directions in CAR-T cell therapies, including some thought leader reactions. In the second part tomorrow morning we discuss what they are doing with their T cell engagers against different targets in multiple myeloma.

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Future of NK Cell Therapy – Part 1

It’s that time of year when we look to what the coming year and future holds and it’s hard to imagine that targeting natural killer (NK) cells won’t have an important role to play in cancer immunotherapy.

When it comes to NK cells, there’s definitely a lot of new product development activity that we look forward to hearing about in 2021, and the commercial interest is palpable, as evidenced by Sanofi’s November 2020 offer of €308M to acquire Kiadis for their NK cell technology platform.

Like old friends, there are many thought leaders BSB enjoys catching up with every few years, and one of them is Dr Todd Fehniger. Dr Fehniger is a Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St Louis and a leading translational researcher in the NK field.

Long time readers may recall our first interview with him back in 2016 where he discussed a paper from his lab published in Science Translational Medicine on “Cytokine-induced memory-like natural killer cells exhibit enhanced responses against myeloid leukemia.”

At ASH20, Dr Fehniger kindly shared with BSB his views on some of the NK cell therapy data presented at the meeting, as well as commentary on where the NK field is at, where it is going and the questions that remain unanswered.

This post is the first of a two part interview with Dr Fehniger providing fresh insights and analysis into the future of NK cell therapy. There was a lot of enthusiasm of late around various developments in this niche, including the Gamida Cell and other key clinical data, but how did an independent expert react to the findings? Were they as enthusiastic as investors or not?

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If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium

Today’s title refers a little tongue in cheek to an old Britishism in reference to a 1960s film about group travel of all things – in those days people apparently took bus tours to various places around Europe to see the sights, often with disastrous results or with comedic events ensuing…

For me, in the modern world the catchy phrase has always been about the transfer or shuttle day between different cities for cancer conferences – sometimes ASCO and EHA have been back to back, for example, while Tuesday is always the frantic shuttle day between ASH and SABCS for many.  At least this year with the virtual events there won’t be unexpected delays due to an ice storm in Dallas or some other vagary of inclement weather causing chaos!

As we straddle events between ASH and SABCS, not to mention ESMO IO coming up at the weekend, it’s time for some discussion around some emerging feel-good data to be greatly encouraged by, as well as a thought leader interview from a specialist in the TKI space.

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ASH20 Preview – Part 1 on small molecule developments

Pathways to success with small molecule developments

It always amuses me when people describe the small molecule space in lymphomas as ‘neat and ordered’ when in reality, it is anything but…

After all, not all patients respond initially, some cannot tolerate the side effects, and additional mutations can be acquired in response to therapy inducing acquired resistance and sometimes more aggressive disease results.

How do we go about addressing all of these issues in order to improve outcomes further?

We can certainly get a few ideas from the early stage pipelines being evaluated, as well as from the kind of combination regimens currently being developed.  What do the results show?

Then there’s a raft of quite unrelated agents which might be competitive and could usurp existing approaches should they move earlier up in the treatment paradigm.  Plenty of Pharma execs have certainly been caught out in the past not keeping their eyes on the right eight ball.

In our latest ASH20 Preview we highlight a few intriguing abstracts to watch out for at the forthcoming meeting this weekend…

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