Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘FLT3’

Challenges and opportunities with two different onco modalities

Paris, 2022

With the AACR annual meeting coming up next month, it seemed a good opportunity to highlight some relevant findings from another cancer conference held this week (ESMO Targeted Anticancer Therapies congress or TAT for short) as a warm-up for the bigger event since there is some handy overlap topic wise.

Having very recently been in Paris (TAT changed to a virtual only meeting), I can say it didn’t feel very spring-like at all (right), quite the opposite!

Europe continues under a cloud at the moment with the Ukraine war very much to the fore – European Lung has also been moved to a virtual event as the conference venue in Prague is quite rightly being converted into a refugee assistance centre.

Despite all the prevailing gloom, there were quite a few important nuggets of interest to share from TAT this year…

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AACR20 – Ten New Directions in Early Cancer Drug Development

It is becoming increasing obvious in these challenging times as the pandemic spreads globally that no corner of the earth (except perhaps the Antartica) is being left untouched.  As lockdowns begin or continue depending the phase the spread is at, this also has numerous implications for clinical trials, both academic and company funded studies alike.

Which direction should we be considering for early anti-cancer therapeutics?

One of the broader effects of the coronavirus pandemic likely means we won’t see much new data on many of the clinical trials after the currently scheduled presentations for AACR, ASCO, ESMO and ASH for a while yet, perhaps well in to 2021, which in turn is a strong reminder if we want to see how much progress is being made then we need to look at what data is available now.

I can well imagine many folks are already completely Zoomed or WebExed out from constant online meetings dealing with the implications of the pandemic on research and clinical development, as well as what happens to new and existing trials, so the idea of listening to two days of a virtual meeting on top is probably a bit daunting for the time-challenged observers amongst you.

AACR’s virtual meeting is a wonderful opportunity for smart folks to take some careful snapshots of where we are now, and how some of the early pipeline agents are shaping up.

The good news is we while your online internal meetings continue apace, we will be posting many reviews, summaries, discussion and analysis of the data here on BSB, hopefully sparing many of the additional stress in busy times. We plan to make the process of analysis and commentary relatively easy so you can follow along with us.

For reference, you can access all of our ongoing AACR20 conference coverage here. Future posts will also be added to this magazine page as they are posted.

In our fourth AACR Preview series, we take a keen look at some additional early products in development of interest, as we continue our updates on the never ending oncology R&D journey.

We highlight 10 emerging agents in early stage development to watch out for…some are new and others we previously reviewed preclinically and have moved along in their R&D journey into the clinic, with good and bad results to think about.

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ASH16 Preview on Acute Myeloid Leukemia AML

Post 2016 US Election, we move on and get back to business with an in-depth review of some new science and clinical data.

ash-2015Yes, it’s time for another Bushidō – “Way of the Warrior” – guide to the key ASH abstracts!

Here we focus on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a difficult and challenging disease to treat with a high unmet medical need for new effective therapies.

In this Preview we look at key companies in the AML space, as well as a look at what’s happening in classic targets and also some new ones that are receiving notable attention, both preclinically and also in the clinic.

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Midostaurin in AML – Better Late than Never!

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is challenging disease to treat and quite distinctly different from its cousin, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).  The first is more common in adults, while the second is more prevalent in children.  Success rates with pediatric ALL have far outstripped what we have achieved with adults in AML to date, partly due to the elderly nature of the disease making for poorer outcomes with stem cell transplants (SCT), as well as increased clonal heterogeneity and cytogenetic complexity with age.

Quite a few FLT3 inhibitors have come and gone over the years – many keen observers will remember Cephalon’s (now Teva) TKI called CEP-701, which was tested in relapsed/refractory disease and Elderly AML, for example, and slid off largely unnoticed to dog drug heaven.

How much does clinical trial design impact a drug’s success or failure?

Sometimes quite a bit, as this story with midostaurin demonstrates; limited activity in advanced disease but much more dramatic results in the upfront setting.  Clearly, sometimes testing drugs in later disease does not predict their future performance elsewhere!

To put more colour on the data presented at ASH, we interviewed a thought leader in adult AML for his perspective on the FLT3 R&D developments.

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