Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘CDK4/6 inhibitors’

An emerging new target for ER positive breast cancer

River Walk, San Antonio, Texas

The famous colourful umbrellas on the San Antonio river walk always remind me of cute little hats, which is a rather apt metaphor for today’s post on an emerging new target for breast cancer.

We have seen some success in ER+/HER2-negative breast cancers with the aromatase inhibitors and CDK4/6 inhibitors in first-line treatment of the disease and the SERDs elacestrant and fulvestrant in earlier and later lines, respectively, but there is still plenty of room for improvement.

If we want to seek out new targets to address either resistance or even synthetic lethal relationships, how might we go about finding them?

In our latest post on this niche, we discuss an emerging target of interest, highlight the competitors in the early landscape and also offer some commentary from a couple of the companies involved…

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The road less travelled

The path less travelled can take us in interesting and unknown directions

We often talk about innovation on BSB and how hard it is to blaze a new path in oncology drug development.

Sometimes what it requires is a different way to think about a target or a new approach to modulating a pathway.

In our latest post AACR23 review, we are taking a closer look at more gems from the poster hall and how some companies and researchers are thinking differently.

Taking the road less travelled is inevitably a balance of risk and reward with plenty of challenges to overcome, which by definition is part of what makes oncology new product development such a challenging yet stimulating area…

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ESMO22 Preview 1 – what to watch out for in breast cancer

Time to make your selections!

This year seems to be going all to quickly as we have arrived in time for the annual ESMO Preview series.

This year we have a lot of topics to cover from a review of various solid tumour types, novel targets and developmental therapeutics, hematologic malignancies, as well as various IO and cell therapy related readouts.

As always, the goal of our previews is to not only provide some context for what to expect, but also to highlight potential success and failures since not all of the trials have been headlined by the companies concerned.

It’s all to easy to forget agents in the same class of therapeutics can produce quite different outcomes despite similarly looking trial designs, as we will find out…

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The good, the bad, the plain old ugly, and the promising

There’s no ASCO meeting without the Bean

There’s always a parable or two to be had at ASCO and this year was no different, especially in the breast cancer space where there were plenty of phase 2 and 3 trials to discuss as well as offer commentary on the various findings.

Not all of the results were standouts though, with some creating controversy in the process.

Here, we take a look at some examples and put them in context…

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The battle of protein degraders versus inhibitors continues apace

To simply say, “it’s complicated!” is a often bit of an understatement in cancer research.

Imagine any advanced cancer in the refractory setting might have multiple changes and defects driving oncogenic activity, which makes targeting just one or even two of them somewhat limiting in terms of the potential impact on outcomes.

Then there’s the whole separate debate of which approach to a given target is the best one – a small molecule degrader or an inhibitor or an antibody?

The best way to tackle these issues is to develop a detailed roadmap with various key landmarks identified, plus flags highlighting areas for further investigation.

Perhaps an underrated aspect of oncology research is the increasing use of chemical probes (degraders or small molecules) to explore the underlying biology in order to understand what needs to be done next in the form of resistance mechanisms or synergies, for example.

The findings generated from this research could then lead to the development of next generation pipeline agents or suggest novel combination approaches to evaluate, which may not have been obvious at first sight.

In this latest post, we take a look at various examples using protein degraders and small molecules though the lens of select patient populations, various tumour targets, and even mechanisms of resistance…

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Important learnings from targeted therapies from SABCS

In the last post from SABCS, we looked at what’s new on the translational front with the MYC oncogene in terms of breast cancer.

This time around we turn our attention to other targets and subsets of interest, which don’t involve immunotherapy – more on the latter in a separate article.

Today’s featured image is inspired by my dear friend Jody Schoger and Lisa Adams, who inspired us to find a little beauty in the world each day, no matter how hard it might seem.  2015 was very bad year for losing wonderful BioTwitter chums in the breast cancer community – they may be gone, but never forgotten 🙁

In particular, we highlight new developments in four key areas of interest, with some intriguing observations to discuss…

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Important learnings from ESMO20

A typical scene from ESMO 2019

Not in Madrid – Is it really only a year ago many of us were frantically dashing around at ESMO last year navigating crowded corridors, long queues for coffee, hunting down the last empty seat in jam packed halls, not to mention feeling the anticipation build for key data being presented in the Presidential sessions?

There are undoubtedly many advantages to virtual digital meetings, aside from the broader access for more people it provides and being able to see the slides unimpeded, yet it must be confessed the things I miss the most are the social interactions and catching up with people and their lives, however brief a moment it may be amongst the hurly burly of 20,000 other souls.

The cultural things we take for granted are often the very essence of what we miss most when they’re no longer obtainable.

Who truly would have guessed our world could be completely upended by the unexpected events of a global pandemic since then? In some ways, it has changed our perception of both time and space.

We have also seen some surprising changes in the fortunes of various clinical trials; some completely rational and predictable, others quite the opposite, as we learned yesterday in a very topsy turvy kind of way.

It’s time to discuss and review the highlights – and lowlights – from ESMO20 Sunday in part 2 of our daily coverage…

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Building up a storm against resistant solid tumours

Can we build up a storm against hard to treat cancers?  The initial evidence suggests, yes we can!

Today’s focus is on an emerging new biotech company with potential to make an impact in difficult to treat solid tumours with a more selective and focused approach to oncology drug development.

We’ve talked about the so-called ‘drugging the undruggable’ targets in the past, but what if we could circle back and use a different approach in combination with existing selective inhibitors currently in the clinic?

These possibilities – and others – caught my attention and they may pique yours too, so what’s this all about?

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Reflections on the latest lurbinectedin and abemaciclib developments

Stormy waters – Oncology R&D is a fine line between success and over the edge sometimes!

BSB Reader Mailbag – With the FDA approval of lurbinectedin on Monday and two very different recent announcements regarding adjuvant therapy readouts for CDK4/6 inhibitors, we received a bunch of BSB reader questions on both topics.

It’s been a while since we dived into the mailbag in a busy conference season, so this is a great time to reflect on some broader thoughts in oncology R&D for context.

Here, we look at two key aspects…

  • Am I enthused about the lurbinectedin data or not?
  • What half dozen factors could we be thinking about when considering CDK4/6 inhibitors in adjuvant HR+/HER2- breast cancer in order to decide if one is better than the other or does luck play a part?

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A rock around the breast cancer clock

Sadly not the #blisterwalk this year

Not in Chicago – Breast cancer has been a hot topic again on several fronts after a bit of a lull on the R&D front.

Writing about such trials across ESMO Breast, ASCO and the second AACR meeting is all very well, but what about some KOL commentary and reactions to some of the data we get to see?

If this has been a burning question for you, this is a handy article to catch up on. Of course, to be clear – not all the trials will be positive or biomarker analysis helpful, so here we tackle the issue and look at what’s what though the lens of a specialist…

To learn more from our oncology analysis and get a heads up on insights and commentary emerging from the ESMO Breast, ASCO and second AACR meeting, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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