Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘CTL019’

Kaizen and the art of improving CAR-T cell performance

Next generation CAR-T cell products are likely to be all the rage soon as companies seek enhanced performance of their agents, not just in terms of safety and manufacturing times, but also with regards to long term outcomes for people with various hematologic malignancies.

The various changes being made are not the same since companies in this niche all seek an edge by evaluating different strategies.

Time to wave the flag on traditional CARs and move onto next gen products?

In part one of this mini-series, we explored some of the improvements being investigated with allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy and now it’s the turn of autologous approaches to be put in the spotlight.

It’s easy to think faster manufacturing is all the rage in order to compete with off-the shelf products whether CARs or T cell engagers, but actually the changes being implemented are much more extensive and wide ranging than this.

Here, we turn our attention and offer an in depth look at what’s behind these novel developments and why they matter through the lens of not only the data presented at ASH, but also an expert interview…

BSB subscribers can read up on our ongoing commentary and analysis from the ASH annual meeting – you can either log-in or click to access the back story behind the latest innovations.

This content is restricted to subscribers

Novartis JULIET trial and other CAR-T cell issues

Yesterday Novartis announced the initial data from the JULIET trial in relapsed/refractory aggressive lymphomas such as diffuse large cell lymphomas (DLBCL) that were presented at the upcoming International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (iCML) meeting in Lugano.

Here at BSB, we’ve been following CAR T cell therapy developments in earnest since 2012 when Penn and Novartis first announced their collaboration to develop what is now known as CTL019.

Five years on, we now have two such cell therapy products already filed with the Health Authorities and the JULIET trial will likely be the third indication submitted by the end of the year. This niche is now well established for regular readers and not something that has been a flash in the pan over a year or so.

There are a few interesting points of note on the CAR T cell front that are also worth exploring in conjunction with this news.

Subscribers can login to read our latest insights or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

ASCO 2017 CAR T Cell Therapy Preview

Chicago RiverAlthough ASH and ASGCT are important meetings for CAR T cell therapies, there are still some intriguing data to be had at ASCO next month, including both oral and poster abstracts.

In our latest ASCO 2017 Preview, we take a look at what to expect from in the CAR T cell space.

Subscribers can login to read our latest insights and analysis

This content is restricted to subscribers

Post ASH16 Reader Q+A on CAR T cell therapies

Some cancer conferences attract more questions and queries than others.

Old Town San Diego

Interestingly, ASH is always a popular meeting for attendees and readers alike, so it is good to see another batch of critical questions come in so soon after the last one. It’s a while since we did two BSB reader Q&A mailbags from a single meeting!

Not surprisingly, there were also a bunch of questions on CAR T cell therapies, which continue to dominate readers minds, as well as related issues. Here, we answer the most pressing questions that have come in over the last week.

Subscribers can log-in below

This content is restricted to subscribers

Highlights of ASH 2016 Part 2

San Diego – Monday at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (#ASH16) is typically a day of multiple oral sessions in parallel.

This year it was a major challenge doing a mad dash between sessions as the meeting is now so big that in San Diego it’s being held, not only at the vast convention center, but is also using the meeting rooms of three nearby three hotels – it’s literally a mile walk to go from one end of the convention to the other, so you have to factor that time into your crazed schedule with multiple clashes.

On the positive side, there’s even courtesy pedicabs – cycle rickshaws (great idea & fun) – I caught one at 7am the other day to save my toes from at least one #blisterwalk…

Pedicab at ASH16 in San Diego

Following on from our ASH Highlights 2016 Part 1, this post answers critical BSB Reader questions that have come in thick and fast and require more than 140 characters on Twitter to answer.

Predictably, the majority of the first tranche of questions have been CAR T cell therapy related, so if you have a keen interest in this area, this is the post for you.  We tackle 5 critical questions and offer some insights.

Subscribers can login to read more or you can purchase access.

This content is restricted to subscribers

7 Things I Learned at #ASH16

San Diego – after “Flying Friday” where I flew from Munich to San Diego, Biotech Strategy Blog coverage of the 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) is now done for another year.

Downtown San Diego during ASH 2016 With over 27,000 attendees – it’s the largest ASH annual meeting I’ve seen in 20 years of coming here!  ASH is definitely the pre-eminent global meeting for hematology and blood cancers.

As you might expect, the thought leaders at this event are super-busy, but we’ve already managed to catch up with a few, and we’ll be rolling out interviews in the “post-game show.”

Subscribers have been asking what’s really hot at ASH this weekend, so reflecting my interests and the sessions I went to, here are my seven highlights/learnings of ASH 2016 (so far). There’s a lot more data to come!

Subscribers can login to read more or you can purchase access…

This content is restricted to subscribers

Juno plays Russian Roulette with JCAR015

Juno Therapeutics LogoThis is an important and necessary follow-up to the ongoing Juno JCAR015 story in July after three patients had died due to complications associated with cerebral oedema. At that time, the company attributed the deaths to the inclusion of fludarabine in the lymphodepletion given prior to CAR T cell therapy infusion, leading to severe neurotoxicity, and clinical hold was lifted by FDA after the protocol was subsequently amended.

This morning came the dramatic announcement that following the protocol amendment, Juno has voluntarily placed the ROCKET trial on clinical hold again following another two deaths from cerebral oedema.

What gives and what are the consequences here?

We take a joint look at some of the issues that arise from this situation in terms of the CAR T cell therapy market and also pen thoughts from the analyst call this morning.

Subscribers can log-in

This content is restricted to subscribers

ASH16 Preview of CAR T Cell Therapies

It was only five years ago that the number of abstracts on CAR T cell therapies at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) ran to a dozen or less. Fast forward to 2016 and we now have tens of them, almost too many to count, let along review quickly and easily.

ash-annual-meeting

A scene from ASH 2015…

To give you an idea of the staggering speed of progress, in 2010 it took me less than half an hour to search and read all the CAR T cell abstracts, now it takes nearly a whole day to peruse and review them carefully.

We can’t resist a challenge…

As usual, we will write in more depth from the meeting as the data emerges in real time since many of the abstracts are often placeholders with updated information provided at the conference itself.

For now, here we provide an in-depth preview of the CAR T cell landscape in terms of the players, the products, new scientific research, biomarkers, emerging trends and more in a handy What to Watch For (W2W4) guide on key areas to expect at ASH to enable better enjoyment and awareness as the data rolls out next month.

Subscribers can log-in to learn more insights and which highlights matter…

This content is restricted to subscribers

September BSB Reader Mailbag

After some relatively quiet summer months, we have been deluged with questions and requests this month for commentary on some hot topics of late. This seems like a good time to take stock and reflect on some of most frequent ones sent in.

west-acton-tubeThe original Journal Club post slated for today will appear next week instead.

Here, we address numerous queries on the following five topics readers are interested in:

  • APHINITY trial in HER2+ adjuvant breast cancer
  • Array’s BRAF plus MEK data in metastatic melanoma
  • Kite’s interim ZUMA–1 phase 2 announcement
  • Amgen’s Kyprolis in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma
  • BMS nivolumab data in 1L lung cancer (CheckMate-026)

The last two in particular seem to be causing a lot of hand-wringing!

To learn more about our insights, subscribers can log-in…

This content is restricted to subscribers

Making CAR T cell therapy more effective in leukemia and solid tumors

AACR Annual Meeting 2016 BannerOne of the hot topics at the forthcoming 2016 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in New Orleans is likely to be CAR T cell therapy (Twitter: #AACR16).

Several research groups have shown impressive results in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), but challenges remain in using adoptive cell therapy to treat other leukemias such as CLL, as we heard from Dr Porter at the recent BMT Tandem meeting. See post: Challenges and Opportunities of CAR T cell therapy in CLL. Perhaps more significantly, there’s a long way to go before CAR T cell therapies hit prime time in solid tumours.

What is fascinating is the pace of scientific research in the field. By the time the first CAR-T cell therapy is FDA approved, the second generation constructs used in them will most likely be obsolete.

This post reviews completely new research, which we’ve not written about before, that I expect we’ll hear more about at AACR, and discusses novel concepts about how to make CAR T cell therapy more effective in both leukemia and solid tumours.  It’s a good pre-AACR preparation for those interested in cancer immunotherapy and the emerging CAR T cell therapy landscape.

Subscribers can login to read more or you can login to purchase access

This content is restricted to subscribers

error: Content is protected !!