Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘cetuximab’

Is more better or is less more?

It’s time to take five lung cancer trials, put them through their paces and explain why all may not be quite what it seems in terms of future success.

Paris street cafe

The long term impact is likely to be far greater than slapping tariffs on penguins.

In the rush to declare “impressive results” or “a game changer” some observers may well be missing the bigger picture…

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Bridge over troubled waters at ASCO24

The devil as they say is in the detail and teasing out what oncology clinical trial data really means can be challenging for the best of us.

In this post we take a look at several trials  reported out at ASCO24 and consider some of the nuances around the data, in particular what cancer new product professionals may need to think about in order to have an informed opinion.

For some, the data is a bridge over troubled waters, while for others the results were perhaps a bridge too far…

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How to Knock Out Cancer’s Backup Plan

Boston Commons in the Fall

Cancer’s got moves… sneaky moves to ensure its survival when you throw targeted therapies its way.

Monotherapy whacks just one piece of the beast. Crafty tumour cells can simply switch on alternate pathways to drive growth again. It’s like a hydraulic game of Whac-A-Mole.

But what if you could outsmart cancer’s backup systems? Shut down its escape route for a while longer?

New preclinical data reveal a smart 1-2 punch that can trap tumours in a corner. The sweet science of vertical and cross pathway inhibition.

This new technique tags both early and late players in pathways like MAPK and PI3K/mTOR. When this happens, cancer’s got no fallback. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Tumours take a sustained beating with every line of therapy thrown at them. Signalling disrupted. Proliferation caged. Apoptosis triggered. TKO.

Combinations tested in NSCLC, RCC, CRC and pancreatic cancer. Impressive, durable regressions.  Researchers now poised to take this clever combo into the human ring.

Want the insider details? A ringside seat to the science? Step this way and we’ll walk you through the preclinical data blow-by-blow…

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Will targeting KRAS G12D prove more successful than G12C?

Are scientists and observers taking a distorted fish eye view of the KRAS world?

I’ve often wondered if in putting so much focus on ripping the progress of the G12C inhibitors to shreds, people simply lose focus of the progress being made elsewhere especially with different, yet related targets.

Here we offer some emerging highlights on several fronts, some of which ought to be well worth watching out for and others perhaps not so much…

Curious to learn more?

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On overcoming resistance to protein degraders

One of the questions we routinely think about at BSB and ask researchers is what are the mechanisms of resistance underlying the therapy they are evaluating in preclinical or clinical studies?

If you understand what these are from the get-go then you can better design rational combination trials to address them and improve outcomes rather than leave things to the vagaries of chance.

In this post, we’re looking at novel approaches researchers are thinking about in relation to resistance with protein degraders and what this may mean for cancer new product development.

Curious to learn more?  Then check out the post below…

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Reflections on ESMO22

Vive La France! 

Despite the raft of negative trials presented in Paris this year, it wasn’t all bad news, although for a while it certainly seemed this way with quite a few phase 3 trials missing their primary endpoints.

It’s time for our ESMO review where we highlight no less than 10 trials offering positive vibes and encouraging signals, particularly in early stage development.

So what were the standouts and why do they matter?

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What can we learn from early stage IO trials?

The search continues to find novel IO approaches to be used either with or instead of checkpoint blockade in a number of advanced solid tumours.

Plain sailing or a rocky road ahead?

In the recent past, much of the combination strategies tended to focus almost exclusively on the adaptive immune system with limited results given the majority of people still do not respond to these therapies.

What if we could utilise the innate immune system in a complementary fashion much more effectively than we have previously?

In order to achieve this nirvana, we need to develop either new technologies to facilitate jumpstarting the stalled immune system or think creatively about doublet and triplet regimens which make sense in tackling the different immune defects present.

Here’s a look at two such early approaches where we explore the latest data and put it context of both what’s known, and also where we’re likely headed…

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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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ESMO16 Preview 1 Novel Target Data Offers Potential to Overcome Barriers to Cancer Drug Resistance

September 1st… as the hot summer floats away from London town and cooler autumn days draw in, it’s time to think about the upcoming fall cancer conference season – it’s quite a busy one this year!

In the coming weeks, I will be rolling out our series on the ESMO 2016 Previews (Twitter #ESMO16) and taking a more in-depth look at various topics of interest. The Copenhagen meeting is later than usual and also more compressed, with numerous sessions now held simultaneously. It used to be that you could take a break between key sessions, but not any more – there’s a lot going on this year.

View of Thames BarrierOne of the things that jumped out to me from a preliminary review of this year’s hectic ESMO program is an interesting novel target that had some early preclinical data at AACR, but that sadly got lost in the tsunami of data there.

It is good to have that reminder and be able to return to it in the context of broader data because overcoming barriers to drug resistance with targeted therapies is still an important issue that is worth researching.

You likely won’t see it in many analyst reports or previews, however, although it’s a hidden gem of great interest and well worth exploring in terms of what we know so far. This means that readers will be both prepared and intrigued – don’t be surprised to hear about some BD&L deals in this niche in the future.

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The value of BRAF targeted cancer therapies in lung and colorectal cancer

It’s time for the August mailbag where we answer questions about cancer research and R&D from subscribers.

After the recent queries about immuno-oncology, it’s time to focus a little on targeted therapies again. Neither chemotherapies nor targeted therapies are going to go away – they are still the bedrock of many treatment approaches in the clinic today. Sadly though, much of the new data for the latter trials were easily swamped by the sheer tsunami of immunotherapy data in Philadelphia (AACR) and Chicago (ASCO).

One important area that we have been discussing on both blogs for some time is the value of well designed basket trials.  It’s time to revisit this concept in the light of new data relating to the BRAF V600 mutation outside of metastatic melanoma.

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