Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘bevacizumab’

WCLC23 – SCLC highlights and lowlights

Can we see the wood from the trees in ES-SCLC?

Much of the noise and attention in lung cancer is usually focused on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at cancer conferences.

While it has a greater prevalence than its more difficult to treat cousin, small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), the good news is there are now quite a few emerging novel agents and targets being evaluated in this disease.

Here we highlight and discuss some of the progress being made (or not) in the context of the broader landscape…

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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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The road to Damascus is paved with good intentions

Münze Österreich

The World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) is underway in Vienna, and for those who arrived early, Friday was the hottest day of the year (37°C) so far!

Is the data at the meeting as hot as the summer weather?

Companies undertake drug development with the best of intentions, but there comes a moment in time where you have to take stock of what exactly is the data is telling you?

Did we experience an epiphany or turning point at WCLC for KRAS G12C inhibitors in lung cancer? Or is there still a way to be travelled on the road to Damascus?

In this latest post we take a look at some key data presented during the meeting and what it means for those in this space.

It’s a story we’ve been following for some time, and as always, there are nuances to be had, because it’s far from black or white…

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Tears Before Bedtime…

After writing about the 1L NSCLC landscape every quarter last year, I was thinking the other day that we were due another update and discussion on this riveting topic again soon and added it to the editorial calendar of topics to write about on BSB.

It was therefore no surprise to hear Merck’s announcement this morning that their phase 3 trial KEYNOTE-189 exploring pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy hit its co-primary endpoints and is now the second study to do so after Genentech/Roche’s announcement for atezolizumab plus chemo plus the VEGF inhibitor, bevacizumab was a success.

Are we at a crossroad for lung cancer?  With many more readouts yet to come competition in this space is certainly heating up dramatically!

Meanwhile, there are a few important implications to consider here, so we sat down and penned an update based on the emerging data and highlight some key insights to consider…

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IMpower150 lung cancer trial provides a window to the Future of Immunotherapy

Geneva: At the ESMO IO 2017 conference underway in Geneva, the data of the meeting is the IMpower150 phase 3 trial data that will be presented later today by Dr Martin Reck (Grosshandsdorf).

Genentech/Roche have announced a press release ahead of the presentation (Link).

This is the first phase 3 lung cancer immunotherapy trial that combines a VEGF inhibitor (bevacizumab/Avastin), along with a PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor (atezolizumab/Tecentriq) together with chemotherapy (carboplatin plus paclitaxel).

While we’ve not seen the actual data curves yet, we spoke to Dr Dan Chen (Genentech) about what we can expect to see later today in Geneva, and importantly, we also discussed the significance of the findings from the IMpower150 study.

As Dr Chen told BSB, “this trial is a lot of firsts.”

If you have an interest in lung cancer or immunotherapy, do follow #ESMOImmuno17 on Twitter, as this is data could potentially be practice changing and have a major impact on the lung cancer treatment landscape.

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A look at CheckMate-214 in 1L metastatic RCC

There’s been another disturbance in the force – as luck would have it, after mentioning renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in yesterday’s post, BMS subsequently put out a press release on the CheckMate–214 study exploring the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in the previously untreated metastatic setting.

The results to date were mixed, so what does this mean and what’s impacted by the findings?

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AACR 2017 Preview 2

Today for the second AACR 2017 Preview, I wanted to switch things up a bit and turn from looking at an important trend to a specific tumour type. One of the reasons for this is that we received questions from readers about recent data presented at medical meetings in this sphere.

It’s also not something that we have covered extensively here on BSB, so looking at something in a different light is often a good idea since insights and intelligence can sometimes jump out afresh.

Given that there are also some important clinical trial results emerging here, this is something we can expect to return to in Washington DC when the data is presented at AACR next month. What can we learn ahead of the event though? It turns out the answer is quite a lot.

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ASCO GI17 Gems from the Poster Hall

San Francisco: In the final post of the week, it’s time to focus on some of the interesting concepts and early ideas being explored in GI tumours such as pancreatic and colorectal carcinomas.

Gems from the Poster Hall or what Dog Drug Heaven really looks like?

Despite the image implied by the used poster bins (right), there were actually several encouraging signs from emerging IO approaches as well as some surprising results that lead to some compounds – or at least some indications – going off to dog drug heaven.

There were also some salutory lessons to be learned in terms of understanding biomarkers and useful these can be.

After years of incremental improvements with targeted therapies, it’s time to look at whether some immunotherapy combinations can make an impact in what is known as cold tumours.

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New developments in advanced colorectal cancer

San Francisco: ASCO Gastrointestinal symposium 2017 – Update on metastatic colorectal cancer

It might surprise quite a few people that colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer globally, especially in the western hemisphere where hereditary, dietary and lifestyle factors can be important.

The bedrock of therapeutic approaches in this disease have largely centred around chemotherapy (FOLFOX or FOLFIRI) along with targeted therapies against EGFR (cetuximab, panitumumab) or VEGF (bevacizumab, ziv-aflibercept, regorafenib etc).

In our second report from #GI17, we take a look at some of the emerging monotherapy and combination approaches that are showing early signs of moving the needle in advanced CRC, an area that has been relatively dormant of late.  This is partly because it’s a cold tumour and with the focus on cancer immunotherapies, it’s not the first tumour type that companies will necessarily rush to evaluate.

Things are changing though, even in colorectal cancer so it’s time to look at some key studies that may teach us more about this disease.

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Can we expect more surprises in 1L NSCLC?

Challenges and Opportunities in the evolving 1L NSCLC Landscape

Rolling English Landscape in Devon

Following a series of events – from BMS’s failure with nivolumab monotherapy… to Merck’s sudden announcement to file their combination of pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy… to AstraZeneca’s delay of the MYSTIC trial exploring durvalumab plus tremelimumab this week, there’s never a dull moment in lung cancer!

So can we expect some more surprises in store in 1L NSCLC?

I say yes we can!  

The big questions are what are they and what impact will they have?

2017 is ironically, the year of the Rooster – so who’s going to crow loudly at dawn and who is going to get strangled in the process?

In the world of cancer research it is unlikely that everything wins or is successful, so figuring out the early signs and hints is an important part of the process.

One thing I learned early in this business is that it pays for companies to be humble, flexible and open minded rather than arrogant and dogmatic in their thinking… otherwise you can easily be blindsided.

There were a few examples of that in oncology R&D last year, a repeat could very well follow in 2017 for the unwary.

Here we look at 1L NSCLC in the context of multiple phase 3 trials that are slated to read out… from AstraZeneca, BMS, Merck and Genentech.

If you want to know what the potential impact of these events are on the landscape, including what we can expect from MYSTIC, CheckMate-227 and several others, then this is the post for you because some surprises are likely in store.

We cut through the chase to explain the what and the why in clear simple language.

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