Checkpoint Blockade | Biotech Strategy Blog

Posts tagged ‘Checkpoint Blockade’

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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The Changing CLL Landscape Part 1

Targeted therapy and Chemo-Immunotherapy in CLL

At last December’s 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, one of the areas that attracted attention was the latest clinical data on the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

ASH 2016 in San Diego

In recent years, we’ve seen tremendous advances in the field with several new agents approved such as obintuzumab, ibrutinib, idelalisib, and venetoclax. There are also new treatment options available for CLL patients with high risk disease such as 17p deletions (Del17p).

Other new targeted therapies such as acalabrutinib are now in clinical development, plus we have CAR T cell therapies and combination strategies also being evaluated in the clinic.

So what was the hot news from #ASH16 in CLL?

Does chemotherapy still have a role or is it a targeted therapy world?
Are we further forward towards a cure?
Have we worked out how to identify those at risk of relapse?
Will CAR T cell therapy be a game changer in CLL?
Is financial toxicity going to be an issue with combination strategies?

BSB interviewed two experts in CLL while in San Diego who kindly shared their thoughts on which CLL data impressed them at the ASH annual meeting and discussed some of the big strategic issues facing the field right now. These interviews are being posted in a two-part series.

Part 1 today answers some of the questions highlighted above and explores the changing face of the broader CLL landscape.

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SITC 2016 Can Nektar Boost Checkpoint Performance

National Harbor, MD

The range of different types of cancer immunotherapies in the clinic now is fairly broad, with many promising approaches being evaluated.

Cytokines, despite their initial challenges with toxicities, are an essential pillar of this approach, along with checkpoint inhibitors and agonists, adoptive T cell therapy, and now even neoantigen approaches and cancer vaccines.

Nektar Therapeutics ($NKTR) are developing two intriguing immuno-oncology compounds based on cytokines, which are in early development called NKTR–214 and NKTR-255.

The idea behind this approach is that they are immuno-stimulatory therapies designed to expand T cells and Natural Killer (NK) cells directly in the tumour microenvironment, thereby increasing expression of PD-1 on these immune cells. Subsequent checkpoint therapy could potentially be made more effective. We already know that those patients with few or no T cells are less likely to respond (cold or non-inflamed tumours) so the hunt is on finding ways to address this particular challenge. Can it be done therapeutically?

Data was presented this past weekend at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC).

Was the data encouraging enough to justify further clinical development or is this a compound headed to dog drug heaven?

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What are neoantigens and why do they matter in cancer immunotherapy?

The Great Fire of London started 350 years ago in September 1666 following a fire in a Pudding Lane bakery. It highlights the potential of what a small fire can do once it takes hold – over the course of 3 days, 13,000 houses and 436 acres were destroyed. It forever changed the landscape of medieval London.

The Monument (pictured right) to commemorate the Great Fire was designed by Sir Christopher Wren. Constructed from 1671 – 1677, it is 202 feet in height, the distance to the bakery where the fire started. You can even walk up it, if you are in the area.

When we think about cancer immunotherapy, one of the emerging important trends is the need to “inflame” or set fire to the immune system, especially in those cancer patients who don’t have a pre-existing immune response.

We want to ignite the immune system, in the hope that it will create the equivalent of the Great Fire…

In this post we’re starting at mini-series looking at neoantigens, beginning with a primer on what they are and why they matter in cancer immunotherapy. In subsequent posts we’ll look at some of the innovative ways companies are identifying and targeting them.

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What’s new on emerging resistance to cancer immunotherapy?

Much has been written about the impact of cancer immunotherapies, particularly the twin pillars of checkpoint blockade and CAR T cell therapies, but beyond that lies a huge wealth of alternative approaches that may come in very useful indeed.

Just as we have seen oncogenic escape witth targeted therapies, there is also a related phenomenon called immune escape. Likewise, this can occur as either primary or secondary resistance.

It’s very important to consider this issue, because, after all, the vast majority of cancer patients with solid tumours do NOT see durable clinical benefit with immunotherapies when given as single agents. Some don’t respond at all (primary resistance), while others may see an initial response, then relapse (secondary resistance).

Understanding the mechanisms involved in resistance may help us design better combination trials to address the underlying biology as well as develop biomarkers to help select appropriate patients for each regimen. Clearly resistance can vary, not only by tumour type, but also by lesion and patient, making it a very complex situation to research.

Some interesting new information has recently come to light that is worthy of futher discussion and analysis, particularly in the context of other published data in this niche.

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Can epigenetics play a role in immunomodulation?

There were so many posters worthy of further analysis and discussion at ASCO this year that we may well need to write a longer series than usual on some of these hidden gems!

If you’re anything like me, just getting round the massive poster hall melée each day in one piece to nab the QR codes and chat to some KOLs felt like an achievement in itself, never mind having the time to read and digest them properly. This is why it’s nice to sit down and process some of the findings afterwards because there was actually quite a lot to learn on the nuances with later reflection.

So what’s on deck in the hot seat today?

Here, we focus on the importance of the tumour microenvironment and how that can be manipulated so that subsequent therapy can be more effective.

Fortunately, there are a number of different approaches that can potentially achieve this lofty goal, at least preclinically, but what happens in the real world when these concepts are actually tested in people with cancer?

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The potential downside of cancer immunotherapy

We’ve noticed for a while now that trials involving immunotherapies have not just standard adverse events reported, but also immune related adverse events (irAEs). We saw these articulately in combination trials at ASCO earlier this month.

Most of these have involved colitis, hepatitis, pneumonitis and such like. If the signs and symptoms are picked up early through careful monitoring and education, these can be more easily managed and controlled.

What about auto-immune diseases?

Is there a risk of auto-immune disease with long term use usage of checkpoint blockade, especially in situations where patients may be treated until progression, which could be a long time if the patient is one of the lucky ones who get a durable complete response?

In today’s post we take a look at these issues. To learn more, subscribers can log in.

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Checkpoint blockade in MSI High cancers

Continuing part two of our mini-series on colorectal cancer, today we move from the big scale Immunoscore study to small subsets of disease that are looking interesting in several ways.

For years, advanced colorectal cancer has been dominated by chemotherapy (FOLFOX or FOLFIRI) with and without targeted therapies (VEGF and EGFR antibodies), with very little new to talk about. Part of the challenge here is how do you add something the existing standard of care and move the needle significantly. In front-line, for example, the OS is already out 2-plus years, so these are long and risky trials to undertake. Not surpisingly, many companies have sought to evaluate their agents in tumour types where they consider the risk of development to be lower.

Unless… we can find creative approaches that turn the paradigm on its head and identify a clearly defined niche that can be carved out separately from allcomers.

This is where we’re at now – identifying subsets that might respond exquisitely to novel approaches based on a rational understanding of the underlying biology. One obvious subset might be BRAF, which can be treated with a BRAF inhibitor with or without other targeted therapies as Dr Pietrantonio and colleagues (2016) literally just showed for example, but what about others of potential interest?

Colorectal cancer with microsatellite stable (MSS) disease represents 95% of metastatic patients. These are people whose mismatched repair system is proficient and actively functional in fixing the DNA strand breaks that occur during the course of life.

In contrast, those with microsatellite instability (MSI) are the minority of people with colon cancer (and some other cancers too) whose mismatched repair system is deficient and unable to adequately repair the DNA strand breaks. Ironically, this leads to thousands of mutations that can be recognised by the immune system to help detect the presence of cancer. It also tends to occur in hereditary cancers such as Lynch Syndrome.

We’ve been following the MSI vs MSS story for a while now, but at ASCO this year there was more data available and things appear to be getting clearer on the commercial front too.

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ASCO 2016 – Top 10 Immunotherapy Abstracts Worth Checking Out

The 10 abstracts selected here are actually not in order of magnitude, preference or weight… with the lone exception #1, an incredible piece of work that was a decade in the making.

Chicago!

Few of these choices are in the press briefing, none are in the Plenary session – they’re often hidden gems that many will miss in the hurly burly of the data drop and noise.

They’re also 10 abstracts that I feel are worthy of highlighting with some additional commentary.

Some of the ideas here illustrate some intriguing trends that are emerging, others may have a big impact on the cancer immunotherapy space, either because of the novel concept idea, or because the data are very compelling, if you understand the science.

You can decide for yourselves – which ones would you pick and why?

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Controversy: Is Chemotherapy Immunotherapy?

One of the unintended consequences of the rise of cancer immunotherapy has been the fall in interest from patients who might be candidates for entry into clinical trials for other therapies, such as chemotherapy and targeted agents, for example.

A number of industry friends have uniformally expressed concern over how difficult it has been enroll such trials and bemoaned the broader – and often not anticipated – effect to the extent that some trials have even been terminated.

This situation often occurs, not because of lack of efficacy or severe side effects, but simply a lack of enthusiasm and low accrual rates. Quite a few patients consider chemo to be nothing short of ‘poison’ and don’t want anything to do with it as a result, unless it can be avoided.

Here’s my advice to those in this situation – stop moaning, start re-thinking, and re-positioning your agent in a different light to the investigators who enroll these studies. If they lack heart, in a highly competitive world, you have to stand out and thus, everything flows from the basic rationale of what you’re trying to accomplish.

What exactly do we mean by that?

Yesterday, we discussed one of the rate limiting steps in the cancer immunity cycle – getting more T cells into the tumours so that that subsequent immunotherapy can be even more effective.

One way to do that?

Chemotherapy!

At AACR recently, we came across some intriguing ideas and approaches that are being discussed and explored, which may open many people’s eyes and minds. It rapidly became clear during discussions with several experts that all is not what it seems, and smart companies are already taking advantage of the new science that is emerging as well as a deeper understanding of the underlying biology of how the immune system behaves in cancer patients.

Here, we offer insights from our latest interview with a thought leader in the field for his perspective on how we can improve response rates and outcomes with cancer immunotherapy.

Fair warning: I must confess that it opened my own mind to fresh ideas and different approaches in an unexpected way – you may experience the same sentiments.

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