Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘bladder cancer’

The romantics wearing rose tinted glasses might well think of successful cancer drug development much like the famous poem by Lord Byron;

“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies”

Yet the reality is much more opaque with endless cloudy or wet days and foggy nights much more typical than the exception.

There are often unexpected glitches in the form of serious adverse events, drug interactions, biomarker crashes, narrower therapeutic indexes and poor activity.

None of this stops a raft of companies rushing into a niche when it is suddenly declared ‘hot’ and everyone wants a piece of the action.  This creates an entirely different series of issues to tackle such as acquired resistance and cross resistance.

Some of the numbers in this latest research surprised me and left me pondering a series of provocative questions such as who’s going to stand out from the crowd, who is going finesse things in the clinic – and most importantly – who’s going to break the mould with a different approach?

In this article we explain some of the nuances at play and offer some pointers of new directions the field is taking, not all of them, I’m sorry to say, are for the better…

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Colon cancer cells Source: NCI Center for Cancer Research

We have covered a tremendous array of different modalities here at BSB from chemotherapies, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, encompassing cytotoxics, small molecules, antibodies, bispecifics, various conjugates, and even viral therapy approaches, but what about the potential for bacterial approaches having an impact in cancer research?

This is isn’t something we come across every day week and thus it piqued our interest.

If we want to start thinking about creative ways to hit hard to target oncogenes then maybe we need to think outside the box a bit with some bold ideas…

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Every now and again something intriguing comes along, which generates a flurry of interest from our readers in terms of early stage pipeline developments.

This example is no exception to the rule, judging from the enthusiastic questions we’ve received over the last couple of months.

Wit a raft of new clinical data available there’s a clear opportunity to explore exactly what’s what and is there something special coming along or is there a real risk/worry this might turn out rather like the IDO pathway with mixed red and green signals floating around?

The only problem here is after carefully reviewing all the evidence I found myself firmly in the sceptics/bear camp, at least for now.

It’s time to walk you all through what we found and what it all means…

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San Francisco!

San Francisco – It’s time to switch horses for some the latest conference coverage and explore some important new findings emerging from the genitourinary world of bladder, prostate, and renal cell cancers at the ASCOGU specialist meeting held late last week.

Not that many years ago, much of this niche was dominated by numerous updates in prostate cancer, with little good cheer to write about on the other two cancers – how things have changed in such a short time!

This year there’s plenty going on in all three categories, I’m pleased to say.

Here we focus on several important trials or targets and explain why they matter and what’s significant about the findings…

Some of the agents or trials selected here are likely to receive more attention going forward as more data become available, so it behooves us to set the scene now.

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Gah, if only we hadn’t enrolled allcomers in our study, the differences would have been so much bigger!

Barcelona – This is the day when many people get absolutely walloped by exhaustion at ESMO even after three double espressos – if you’re still going strong then I commend your stamina and fortitude!

This is a big day for several companies with important phase 3 trial readouts due to be presented at the conference today.

One in particular is the phase 3 PROfound trial exploring the role of the PARP inhibitor, olaparib, in HRD+ advanced prostate cancer.

Beyond the top line findings (the PFS endpoint was met) there are a LOT of subtleties and nuances to consider so we have an analysis to share of some of the pitfalls and potential issues that may be missed in the hurly burly and noise.

Are you ready?

There’s a lot to think about today, not just in PROfound, but also quite a few other studies have been put under the microscope too.

Here we go unto the breach, my friends…

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We’ve been writing about PARP inhibitors since 2006!  Who knew this target would have multiple legs over a dozen years on?

Barcelona

In this post we’re taking a look at some of the noteworthy presentations at ESMO19 around targeting DNA damage repair (DDR) and how they act through synthetic lethality and/or the generation of immune response to kill cancer cells in GU cancers.

It’s a fascinating area where we are seeing convergence between immunotherapy and genomic instability, one of the hallmarks of cancer.

The abstracts for ESMO19 are not yet available, so in this post we’re only providing context and setting the scene for some of the presentations we are looking forward to, as well as raising some key questions that we hope will be answered in Barcelona.

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Neon Therapeutics LogoAs we prepare for rolling out some additional expert interviews on a variety of topics together with another mini-series on a tricky target, I wanted to take a moment to explore the Neon Therapeutics data.

Most of the news reports yesterday seemed to be concentrated around a general theme of ’cancer vaccine assist beats immunotherapy drugs alone!’or ‘vaccine boosts Opdivo response in 3 cancers’ … but does the data live up to the breathless hype that ensued? What can we say about the latest clinical update?

As often is the case, the true story around the facts turns out to be much more nuanced and subtle in flavour than the garish headlines might have you believe…

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Downtown Chicago

In our latest ASCO 2018 Preview series we take a look at some of the key highlights from urothelial and bladder cancers and look at how new developments in this space are progressing.

Historically in oncology, we see initial trials begin in advanced stage disease especially in the refractory metastatic setting and move up into earlier lines of therapy later as safety and efficacy become more established.

This situation has been very much the case in urothelial carcinomas, including bladder, penile, renal pelvis, ureter and transitional cell cancers. With the approval of pembrolizumab and atezolizumab in the relapsed setting following cisplatin therapy, much of the focus has now turned to earlier stage disease.

In our latest Preview, we explore some of the key combinations and look at whether or not they are more promising in terms of outcomes than the monotherapy readouts we have seen to date.  There’s a lot to cover and digest…

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What we wanted to accomplish in our latest thought leader interview was to peek under the hood with someone active in this field who is an experienced participant in phase 2 and 3 trials, as well as being a solid translational researcher capable of thinking outside the box critically.

Stacking up the evidence from IO trials

Today we cover a global KOL’s perspectives on cancers of the lung, renal, bladder, and even melanoma, in a wide ranging discussion about immunotherapy trials and some of the pitfalls and opportunities to watch out for.

It makes for an intriguing read as there are likely a few issues that many have not thought about in great depth.

This is an important discussion in the context of not just data that was recently presented at several conferences including AACR, but also with the upcoming monotherapy and chemo combination trials (including squamous and non-squamous lung cancer) expected at ASCO in a few weeks time.

We discuss quite a few of the key challenges and opportunities relating to the broader picture and highlight some of the important issues to watch out for…

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Finding patterns in the mosaic of cancer biology

In our fifth AACR preview of the annual meeting of 2018, we switch directions from a tumour type to explore a novel and emerging pathway of interest.

Each year we pick a different target to explore; this year it’s the turn of TGFβ.

There’s a lot going on here, both preclinically and clinically that should interest BSB readers who are keen to see new developments in the IO landscape.

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