Clinical Trials | Biotech Strategy Blog

How to revolutionize cancer immunotherapy trials

Paris: If cancer immunotherapy is a revolution in how cancer is treated, then Dr Jérôme Galon is a revolutionary.

In addition to being a Research Director at INSERM in Paris, Dr Galon is one of the co-founders of Marseille based HalioDx, an immuno-oncology diagnostics company that is commercializing the research from his laboratory.

Last month, while in Paris, I had the great pleasure to talk with him in his office at the Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers (CRC) on the left bank of Paris.

At the time of the French revolution in 1789, it was the gathering place of the “Club des Cordeliers,” for famous revolutionaries such as Danton, Marat, and Camille Desmoulins. Dr Galon told me it was where the Declaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789 (Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen) was signed.

As such, it’s a very appropriate place to find a cancer immunotherapy revolutionary…

To learn more insights on what he had to say about a variety of topics in cancer immunotherapy, subscribers can log-in or you can gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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Emerging drugs in development for Osteoporosis

The February 2011 issue of Nature Reviews Drug Discovery has an interesting review by Kawai, Mödder and colleagues on “Emerging therapeutic opportunities for skeletal restoration.”

Some of the new products they discuss include:

Parathyroid Hormone-Related protein (PTHRP)
Cathepsin K Inhibitors: odanacatib
Wnt-ß-catenin pathway targets: sclerostin, DKK1 antagonists, lithium.

The market opportunity for osteoporosis remains significant, affecting 44 million people in the United States over the age of 50, resulting in healthcare costs in excess of $15 billion a year; numbers that are set to increase with the ageing population of baby boomers. The low bone mineral density (BMD) associated with osteoporosis results in increased risk of hip fracture, from which the mortality rate is 20-30% in the first year.

The current competitive landscape for osteoporosis includes antiresorptive agents such as the bisphosponates (alendronate, risedronate, ibandronate, zoledronic acid) that inhibit bone resorption. These compounds reduce fracture-risk by 20-30%, but long-term safety issues remain a concern. High doses of zoledronic acid (Zometa) has been linked to osteonecrosis of the jaw (see previous blog post).

Amgen’s new monoclonal antibody, denosumab, binds to RANK-L, thereby inhibiting its action, with the result that osteoclasts (the cells responsible for bone resorption) cannot form, function or survive. The result of this mechanism of action is a reduction in bone loss and bone destruction.

Like zoledronic acid, denosumab also has a risk of osteonecrosis of the jaw developing. However, one additional long-term safety issue for denosumab is the fact it suppresses TRAIL (tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand) that is not only produced by osteoblasts (the cells responsible for bone formation), but also by immune cells. This raises the possibility of skin and immune adverse events, which were seen in the clinical trial data.

Kawai & Mödder in their review article conclude that:

“There is still a need for therapies that reduce fracture risk beyond the level achievable with bone-resorbing agents, particularly as virtually all of the currently available drugs do not eliminate the possibility of future fractures.”

However in addition to having a market opportunity and scientific rationale, any biotechnology company looking at osteoporosis as part of their marketing strategy, must face up to the increasing ethical concerns over placebo-controlled clinical trials. This topic was highlighted last year in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In the future there is likely to be increased pressure not to recruit subjects at high-risk of osteoporosis (T score less than -2.5) into placebo-controlled trials, thus increasing the costs, number of patients and time to bring new products to market. In addition, the regulatory barriers to entry are becoming higher, given that regulatory agencies require a reduction in fractures over 3 years to establish the efficacy of a new drug. This ultimately results in the need for large, expensive, and long phase III clinical trials.

In forthcoming posts, I will discuss the opportunities for market entry by new osteoporosis drugs targeting the Wnt- ß-catenin pathway, Cathepsin K inhibitors and Parathyroid hormone-related protein.

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MIM Software receives FDA approval for iPhone and iPad Imaging App

By Pieter Droppert on February 7, 2011

Following on from my blog post last week that discussed the use of iPads and other tablet computers in clinical trials, MIM Software have just received FDA 510(k) clearance to market their iPhone and iPad medical imaging app in the United States. This is the first such approval by the FDA, and the app will be sold in Apple’s itunes store.

This new mobile radiology application will allow physicians to review medical images on their iPhone and iPad. The FDA in their press release indicate that it is not intended to replace full work stations, but to provide the ability to view images and make diagnoses when a workstation is not readily available.

The FDA reviewed luminance, image resolution quality, and results from demonstration studies with radiologists that showed that images could be safely interpreted for diagnostic purposes under appropriate lighting conditions.

What is more, using software from MIM, the images can be further analyzed and distance measurements made.

The ability to have wireless access to medical images will be particularly useful to physicians working remotely, in emergency situations and in clinical trial networks where the central imaging review facility may not be local.

As the screen resolution of iPad’s and other tablet computers increases, perhaps we will see advanced visualization software available on the iPad? It is certainly an area where innovation is taking place, and one that I think will impact clinical research in the biotechnology industry before too long.

How will innovation change the clinical trials process?

By Pieter Droppert on January 31, 2011

The theme for the biotech strategy blog this week is innovation in bringing new drugs and devices to market. Innovation is the lifeblood of the biotechnology industry and what drives the acquisition of companies for their pipeline by large pharma companies.

Tomorrow I will be at the Innovation in Healthcare Symposium at MIT in Cambridge, MA. See my earlier blog post for further information. I look forward to writing about the Symposium later this week.

One experienced industry professional recently told me that he believed the Ipad would revolutionize the clinical trials process. Do you agree? On reflection, I think the IPad and similar tablets will make the clinical trials process more efficient, but is this an innovative breakthrough that will revolutionize the model? I am not so sure.

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, analysts talked about the 80-100 new tablet computers that were on show, and the fact that an estimated 50 million e-books and tablets will be sold in 2011. Companies have clearly innovated in bringing new technology to market, that we now have a desire for and want to use.

Health Professionals have embraced the IPad, it’s ease of use, portability and potential for a range of uses from data entry, to the viewing of medical images and access to online reference databases. In the hospital environment, it can easily be integrated into the IT infrastructure and made HIPAA compliant if no data is stored on it.

For clinical trials, it is already being as an electronic data capture (EDC) interface for case report form (CRF) data entry, although I am not sure whether it will become the primary interface. My expectation is that IPads and similar tablets will increasingly be used as a portal for accessing study resources, the ordering of supplies, recording of adverse events and even the signing of patient informed consents.

I also expect we will see IPads being given to patients for clinical trial diary and journal entries. What’s more by using these devices with 3G wireless capability, study coordinators will be able to interact in real-time with patients, remind them of study visits and monitor medication compliance. Mobile health is set to be a real growth area.

On the medical imaging side, results from a clinical trial published at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting last December showed that radiologists viewed the IPad imaging quality as equal or superior to standard LCD displays when viewing X-rays. (Erik Ridley wrote up a good post about this on AuntMinnie.com).

Reviewing X-rays to screen for TB is a lot different from diagnostic imaging in clinical trials, so I remain unconvinced that the IPad will take over for primary diagnosis, and central review of images is still going to be the gold standard.

What I think the IPad and other tablet computers will do is allow the easy sharing of images between the central review laboratory, investigators and study coordinators. This will make it easier to monitor patient inclusion, study progress and report imaging results.

So looking at the above, while I think the IPad is an innovation, I don’t necessarily think it will revolutionize clinical trials and bring products to market faster. It will be interesting to see what industry professionals have to say at the Drug Information Association (DIA) annual meeting later this year.

What are your thoughts on how innovation will change the clinical trials process in the biotechnology industry? How can we bring products to market faster?

FDA advisory committee rejects approval of Lilly’s florbetapir in Alzheimer’s imaging until accuracy and consistency by readers

By Pieter Droppert on January 24, 2011

Last week on January 20, 2011, the FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee decided not to recommend approval of Lilly’s Amyvid™ (florbetapir) in a 13:3 vote. Florbetapir is an imaging agent used with Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to show accumulation of beta-amyloid plaque in the brain. I previously wrote about Lilly’s acquisition of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals for florbetapir on this blog.

This imaging approach aids in the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease, as a negative scan, not showing any beta-amyloid plaque, would rule out Alzheimer’s disease. Given that it is currently, hard to distinguish age related memory less and different types of dementia, diagnostic imaging tools have an important role to play.

The FDA advisory committee’s decision would probably have come as a surprise to Lilly, since the clinical trial data showed clear efficacy and no safety concerns. While the committee rejected immediate approval, they did recommend approval (16:0), conditional on a training program to show that radiologists and readers of the scans could be accurate and consistent in their image interpretation. The FDA is not bound by the Committee’s recommendations but is required to take them into consideration when deciding whether to grant approval.

Imaging is becoming increasingly important in clinical trial design. In therapeutic areas such as osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis and oncology, imaging end points are often surrogates for drug efficacy.

The challenge that emerging biotechnology companies face in linking imaging to drug use, is the variability of readers outside a controlled clinical trial environment where images may be read centrally. Standardization of image acquisition and reading needs to take place, so that a radiologist in different hospitals can come up with the same findings. Those involved with imaging clinical trials know how hard this can be, even within the controlled clinical trial setting.

The recommendation of the FDA advisory committee that Lilly needs to put in place a training program to show accuracy and consistency of readers is a valid concern and one that all biotechnology companies and pharmaceutical companies should take note of when developing imaging agents.

New research points to role of Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator Signaling in Emphysema

One of the exciting things about the biotechnology industry is its ability to innovate and translate developments in basic science into potential new drugs.

I previously wrote about denufosol in cystic fibrosis (CF), a disease that affects about 30,000 people in the United States and 70,000 worldwide. The disease is characterized by the accumulation of mucus that leads to bacterial overgrowth and chronic lung infections. Mucus cannot be removed from the lung in CF due to abnormal mucociliary transport resulting from impaired epithelial chloride secretion and sodium hyperabsorption. This is now known to be due to defective cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) protein. A good overview of this can be found in the 2006 New England Journal of Medicine Editorial by Felix Ratjen, “Restoring Airway Surface Liquid in Cystic Fibrosis.”

A good overview of the pipeline of new drugs in development for CF can be found on the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation web site. Vertex in particular has two drugs (VX-809, VX-770) in late stage development that are cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulators, aimed at increasing CFTR function. Phase 3 registration data for VX-770 is expected in the first half of 2011. I look forward to writing about the results.

Recently, a team from Johns Hopkins led by Neeraj Vij published a paper in the January 2011 issue of Journal of Immunology on the “Critical Modifier Role of Membrane-Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator-Dependent Ceramide Signaling in Lung Injury & Emphysema.”

The researchers found that lung damage in mice was associated with changes in the amount of CFTR in the cell surface membrane. Decreases in the amount of CFTR were associated with increased ceramide, a trigger of inflammation of cell-death. Or as the the paper describes it:

“CFTR expression inversely correlates with severity of emphysema and ceramide accumulation in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease subjects compared with control subjects.”

The emergence of inflammation as a key role in chronic disease was the subject of a previous blog post about diabetes, so is interesting to see another area where it is involved.

This basic research shows that developing drugs that target CFTR and mediate ceramide may have an important role to play in the treatment of emphysema, a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that affects 2 million Americans. Translational medicine that can take basic science and apply it to clinical practice is key to the long term success of the biotechnology industry.

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Posts tagged ‘Clinical Trials’