Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Biomarkers’

What science tells us about future directions in lung cancer

The World Conference on Lung Cancers (WCLC) annual meeting in Singapore showcased important scientific findings illuminating new directions against these deadly diseases.

While some clinical presentations fell a little short of expectations, smaller sessions revealed some important gems illustrating the intricacies of lung cancer biology where art and science intersect.

In the end lung cancer remains complex, heterogeneous, often aggressive, and evolving. Emerging translational research undoubtedly brings hope towards guiding more targeted therapeutic strategies.

The art is in creatively leveraging emerging science to tackle these lethal diseases from every angle.

Here we highlight seven areas where we ought to be paying attention to when considering future directions in lung cancer…

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A flurry of new biomarkers are coming to the fore

Jockeying for position

Our latest post discusses recent updates on biomarker research across several cancer types.

These include several types of lung cancer, as well as prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and bladder cancer.

Not all the trials mentioned returned a positive result, although some were much more encouraging. Either way, there is much to learn from the analyses and offer some pointers for the future.

Also included are a dozen or so pharma or biotech companies whose work might be impacted by the findings described within. Yours could be one of them…

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The duality and the dark side of biomarkers

Fall in Boston

Far too many cancer drugs end up being pursued for the wrong reasons in the wrong setting, which is a dreadful waste of time, money, and resources. The focus lately on speed has not helped matters either and yet companies often forget the first-in-class to market agent doesn’t guarantee best-in-class performance.

With the upcoming ENA and SITC meetings there will likely be a veritable smorgasbord of different immunotherapies being presented, not to mention a variety of new combinations or regimens to consider – how should we proceed in terms of thinking about the data coming out and which framework should we use to assess them?

In this post we offer some tips and perspective on how we should perhaps be thinking about outcome measures, and in particular the use of biomarkers, when it comes to interpreting the results from early phase clinical trials that will be presented at these meetings.

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An exciting pipeline of early stage oncology agents from BMS

Over the last decade we have seen great strides taking place in the field of multiple myeloma as the disease has moved from an acute to a more chronic one with the advent of proteasome inhibitors and IMiDs. We’re still not curing many people, however.

The good news is there is now a raft of completely different agents with varying novel targets and modalities emerging at a rapid pace in early to near-term clinical development.

This raises some important strategic questions to think about for the future way beyond which ones look most promising because the bigger question is how will new regimens evolve to challenge the standard of care in each line of treatment?

CAR-T cell therapies are certainly in the mix here, but where will they be optimally used in the future, how do we go about figuring out which people should receive which particular option?

The issues at stake are much more complex than simply asking which BCMA directed therapy is going to be the ‘winner’ because myeloma doesn’t work like this given the preponderence of doublet and triplet regimens.

A better way of exploring new opportunities will be to consider who has what synergies with whom and how might they fit together in a more cogent and coherent fashion.

In order to explore the evolving multiple myeloma landscape, we decided to take a step back and explore the new options from a more strategic perspective. To accomplish this, we interviewed two companies who are active in this niche as well as some specialist thought leaders. It’s a highly relevant time to consider the issues given the broad discussions likely to emerge at JPM21 this week.

We kick off the latest mini-series with a look at the BMS pipeline opportunities in myeloma, who will be followed by J&J tomorrow, and finally discussion with a global expert on Wednesday – so without much ado, let’s roll!

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Marseille Immunopôle PIONeeR Project provides insights at ESMO20 into Lung Cancer Immunotherapy

The theme of this year’s ESMO20 virtual meeting was “Bringing innovation to cancer patients,” one that definitely resonates at BSB where our focus is very much on “Bringing innovative science to life.”

In this latest post, we’re taking a closer look at data presented at ESMO20 by Prof Fabrice Barlesi (@Barlesi) on the first 100 patients enrolled in the biomarker part of the PIONeeR Project : Precision Immuno-Oncology for advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Patients with PD1(LC1) ICI Resistance (LBA53).

This work is part of the innovative Marseille Immunopôle (@Immunopole) collaboration between academia and industry in the South of France.

Back in 2016, BSB attended a scientific seminar in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML), one of the academic partners and since then we’ve been following many of the innovative immuno-oncology companies such as Innate Pharma, HalioDx, and ImCheck Therapeutics, who form part of this biotech cluster.

Marseille, home to innovative @immunopôle cluster

Professor Fabrice Barlesi is now Medical Director at Gustave Roussy (link) and kindly took time out of his busy schedule to speak to BSB about the PIONeeR project.

Perhaps not surprisingly, finding out exactly why some people respond to checkpoint inhibitors in NSCLC and others do not is not quite as simple as it sounds.

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ESMO20 Preview 1 – Key progress in biomarker development

Scaling the ramparts in Real Madrido

It feels slightly surreal to be writing about this year’s annual ESMO confab instead of attending in person in Madrid, Spain.

While much of the time and attention at ESMO is usually focused on the major phase 3 readouts from various clinical trials, we will be covering these during the meeting as they are presented to avoid repetition since many of the topline company trial results have already been announced.

In this year’s conference Preview series, I wanted to take a step back and explore early new product development in several forms:

  • Biomarkers and potential new ways of predicting outcomes in development
  • Emerging novel targets of interest
  • Developmental therapeutics – trials and tribulations

This initial review will tackle some important developments pertaining to various biomarkers of interest.

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The brightest flame casts the darkest shadow

George Martin’s quote seems rather apt this morning as NextCure announced there was disappointing single agent activity with their Siglec–15 directed agent (NC318) in an ongoing phase 1/2 trial.

There were a couple of initial partial responses reported at SITC last year and now it may seem as if the wheels are falling off the wagon.

What can we learn from the latest update?

It turns out quite a bit…

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Important findings on the renal cell cancer front

Looping across different types of analyses can yield intriguing and unexpected results

Not in Chicago – It still feels surreal not to have been to windy city and back for the annual meeting at ASCO this year, such was the ongoing effect of the pandemic in the oncology world.

That said, the virtual meeting has produced some gems this year, including some very important findings many may have missed.

In our latest post meeting report we focus on both biomarkers and clinical findings.

We look at how there are various elements may interplay in unexpected ways, whether signatures from one trial are helpful in another, are there likely to be changes in treatment patterns as a result of data presented and where some emerging early signals might be useful.

One other aspect which crossed my mind was how a deep scientific approach used in one particular cancer might have potential applications in other tumour types with few somatic mutations present such as TNBC, prostate cancer or soft tissue sarcomas.

The results might produce quite different results, yet the process itself might be rather useful to consider…

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The next wave of IO agents for combination therapies

Part of the next wave of early immuno-oncology agents are focused on addressing the tumour microenvironment and inhibitory factors that dampen down immune responses.

As we look at all the options available, there are a few obvious ones such as physical barriers and inhibitory cytokines or chemokines, but beyond that are a vast array of other potential targets we can aim at therapeutically.

We have covered quite a few of these already, but here’s a new one to add to the list.

One particular advantage is that because it is early in development, few competitors have cottoned on to the concept yet. First mover advantage can have quite a few benefits, after all.

Here’s an important question to consider in terms of oncology R&D – would you rather explore a blue ocean strategy or follow the lemmings off the cliff and be 14th to market in a highly competitive red ocean?

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Highlights from small biotechs at SITC 2019

Some of the upcoming coming small biotechs caught our attention and may turn out to be future stars

National Harbor – There were quite a few gems in the poster halls and oral presentations from up and coming small cap biotechs at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) meeting this year.

Who were they and what did we learn from them?

In the latest part of our latest SITC coverage we highlight 13 presentations – 11 from small biotechs and 2 academic abstracts – that caught our attention, explain what’s intriguing about them and why they matter.

There’s not a single big Pharma included (unless as a reference point or given in combination) since the focus is mainly on up and coming companies with their novel approaches.

The list is quite selective and not at all random from a list of over 850 abstracts.

So what stood out and what was special about them?

Some of the selections are likely hidden sleepers that few will be familiar with… they also cover a wide range of approaches, targets, different modalities and even strategic intent.

Even if you were at the SITC 2019 meeting, increasingly there were more business meetings taking up valuable time than sessions attended, so this is a great way to catch all the highlights for your trip report 😉

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