Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Genentech’

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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ESMO16 Preview 7 Key Trials in Breast Cancer

There was a time when it seemed that all the good news emerging in cancer research was on breast cancer, that is clearly no longer true as other tumour types have seen some leaps and bounds with different modalities, including areas previously thought to be a graveyard for big Pharma, such as metastatic melanoma, for example.

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New Dawn at the Houses of Parliament

That said, after the excellent developments in hormone-sensitive disease and the identification of the HER2 oncogene, we now have CDK4/6 as a validated target in metastatic breast cancer.

Pfizer’s palbociclib (Ibrance) lead the way, with two approvals in previously untreated and relapsed ER+ HER2- advanced breast cancer. Two other companies in this field are Novartis with ribociclib and Lilly with abemaciclib. Data is being presented on all three therapies at ESMO this year.

In addition, there are some other abstracts of note that are well worth discussing.

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ESMO16 Preview Novel Targeted Therapies

In our ECCO Preview series last year (note: ESMO and ECCO have alternated the EU major cancer conference in the Fall for years), we highlighted several promising novel agents in development including the following:

  • StemCentRx’s anti-DLL3 inhibitor: rovalpituzumab tesirine (ROVA-T)
  • Ignyta’s Pan Trk, ROS1 and ALK inhibitor: entrectinib
  • Pfizer’s anti-NOTCH3 inhibitor: PF–06650808
  • Pfizer’s PTK7 ADC in TNBC: PF–06647020

What happened to them all? Were they good selections or not?

Well, AbbVie acquired StemCentRx in a $10.2B deal, Ignyta are busy advertising their new clinical trial enrollment for entrectinib as a non-chemotherapy and non-placebo controlled study on social media, suggesting that compound’s clinical development is still very much alive, while both the Pfizer compounds are also still active, as far as I know.

None have yet been consigned to dog drug heaven, which is quite something considering the failure rate in oncology drug pipelines!

Indeed, last year the Pfizer PTK7 ADC data was focused on triple negative breast cancer, where there is a solid rationale. This time around, the same research group explore the latest activity in advanced solid tumours, including ovarian cancer, as mentioned in the earlier Preview (See: 9 key abstracts in Ovarian Cancer).

sallys-barSo it’s time to sit down and chew the fat on one of my favourite topics at conferences – Development Therapeutics.

Here we consider which other compounds – other than the Pfizer ADC – that are worthy of highlighting and watching out for this year?

There are certainly some curious and quite different (i.e. novel) approaches to look at.

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ESMO16 Preview on Late Breaking Abstracts in Lung Cancer

The 2016 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) is fast approaching. It takes place next month from October 7th to 11th and we will be on site covering the meeting for Biotech Strategy Blog. We’re looking forward to a great meeting!

ESMO 2016 CongressIf you are sitting on the fence as to whether you should go to Copenhagen, then hopefully our series of Previews will help you decide.

Be warned that accommodation is in already in short supply and ESMO are now putting people up across the Oresund bridge in Malmo, Sweden.

The Congress App has a lot of useful information and is well worth downloading, if you haven’t done so already.

Last week many of the late breaking abstract (LBA) titles were announced, although there are still some placeholders. While we won’t know the actual late-breaking data until the meeting, the LBA titles offer insights into what will be presented in Copenhagen.

In the second in our ESMO 2016 Preview series, we’re highlighting the lung cancer late breakers that we’re looking forward to hearing, providing some background on why they may be of interest, and a look at how some of subset landscapes may be a-changing in the future.

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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 impact of niraparib on the ovarian cancer landscape

Tesaro’s niraparib is a highly selective poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) 1/2 inhibitor that can induce synthetic lethality in tumor cells with homologous recombination DNA repair deficiencies (HRD), including germline BRCA-mutated tumours.  It received a lot of attention yesterday following the company’s announcement that the phase 3 trial successfully met its primary endpoint.  The trial was expected to readout this month, so it was bang on schedule.

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Braving the scrum in the ASCO 2016 poster hall

The results generated a lot of discussion and also a bunch (half a dozen!) of questions from readers, since there was a lot noise around the top-line data in the press release, but very little real analysis or context.

I was planning on rolling out the draft posts we have been working on Gems from the Poster Halls, which included one focused on ovarian cancer.  It therefore makes sense to combine the poster analysis with a reader Q&A on ovarian cancer, including a detailed look at Tesaro’s niraparib as there are some important subtleties that many have missed.

Inevitably this ended up as a rather meaty analysis rather than the quick review I originally intended!

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ASCO 2016 Monday Blog #ASCO16

Chicago ArchitectureChicago – the ASCO 2016 annual meeting is in full swing. This is the third and last day of our rolling blog where we’re providing updates with top-line commentary throughout the data.

If interested, you can also check out the many updates from Day 1 and Day 2.

There’s a lot happening at ASCO today, including a presentation by Vice President Joe Biden later this morning. Allow extra time for security checks if you plan to listen to him in person, and I expect there’ll be delays to the hotel shuttle buses around Chicago as roads are closed to accommodate the VP’s motorcade.

Many people chose not to come to ASCO this year – but it’s turned out to be a great meeting. We’ve heard a lot of new data which are likely to have an impact on future clinical trial strategy, as companies look to bring new products to market in what is a competitive field, particularly in cancer immunotherapy. There are how many PD-1 checkpoints in development now?

A word of warning to the wise – not all these IO molecules are going to win – some are going to fail, some will be useful tools in various subsets and some are going to be new home runs.

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ASCO 2016 Preview 1 – Novel Combination Approaches

For years we’ve followed the trials and tribulations of targeted therapies seeing many approved and quite a few disappear forlornly (and officially) off to dog drug heaven. Many more sit in no-man’s land as companies eagerly wait in a holding pattern for other trial readouts in different tumour types. Sadly, sometimes these studies don’t generate enough compelling data either. With so much competition about, there are no shortcuts or low-hanging fruit in biotech or cancer drug development any more.

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En route to Chicago and ASCO!

Then along came antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), with some encouraging results in a range of cancers in both solid tumours and hematologic malignancies that lead to the approval of several new therapies.

After that, the next big advance was immunotherapies, specifically checkpoint blockade, with encouraging single agent activity in melanoma, lung, and even urothelial bladder cancer. We’ve also seen the promise fo combining two different checkpoints such as nivolumab and ipilimumab together in metastatic melanoma, albeit with an increase in toxicities.

This is all very well and good, although the challenge remains that the majority of patients either respond to therapy and relapse, or do not respond at all, depending on the circumstances, the tumour type and the regimen. We still have a long way to go in moving the needle and creating a new paradigm shift on a broad scale.

So what happens when we start to combine modalities – such as targeted therapies with immunotherapies?

Uh-oh, I hear the distant cries of disagreement erupt…

  • Remember vemurafenib plus ipilimumab in metastatic melanoma was scuppered by severe hepatitis?
  • What about osimertinib plus durvalumab in NSCLC and the increased incidence of ILD?

Both of these statements are true, and yet… we should not assume that all mixed therapy combination approaches are doomed on the basis of a mere n of 2. What happens if some are synergistic or additive? What happens of there are hidden gems that teach us new ways of doing things rather than doing the same old thing just because it’s always been done that way?

With this in mind, I’d like to open the door on our first ASCO 2016 Preview series with a look at novel combination approaches in development that caught my eye.

What are the early hints and signals that we can learn from the data? Which companies are evaluating imaginative new ideas that may turn the tables on traditional thinking?  The ideas discussed here may well surprise a few people.

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Can ADCs be adapted to tackling MRSA?

Today we take a short break from our AACR conference coverage and look at some creative new research that has its roots in oncology, i.e. antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), while being adapted and adopted for use in microbiology and infectious diseases.  Here at BSB, we have always been attracted to innovative science and technology and this latest project certainly fits that bill.

This is not such a stretch as many may think, after all, advanced cancer patients or those in an ICU  tend to be prone to infectious complications, which can, unfortunately, be lethal.

While this work is currently ongoing in the preclinical setting, it could be something we hear a lot more about in the near future as clinical development rolls out and there is a dramatic impact for patients.

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What next for Bcl2 inhibitors after venetoclax’s approval in CLL?

This week certainly turned out to be a defining tale of two drugs with a chequered history…

Lion DancersFirst off, the FDA approved AbbVie/Genentech’s venetoclax, now known as Venclexta, in a subset of CLL patients with 17p deletions. These patients have a historically poor prognosis and the approval goes some way to addressing the high unmet medical need.

Secondly, another biotech company, Clovis Oncology, got slammed by ODAC with a 12-1 vote to wait for phase 3 data from the TIGER-3 trial for rociletinib to better determine the efficacy:safety benefit profile.

For a long while it seemed that AbbVie had nothing but toil and trouble over the tumour lysis syndrome (TLS) issues giving them some significant challenges to overcome, while Clovis were one of the new darlings of Wall Street.

In the final dash to the market, the tables were turned almost at the 11th hour and fortunes stunningly reversed.  Yet a mere eighteen months ago, few industry watchers would have predicted the difference in outcomes.

In our latest AACR Preview series, we take a look at Bcl2 inhibition and where some of the emerging opportunities might lie based on new preclinical research that is being presented here in New Orleans this weekend.  It makes for interesting reading.

While one tiger is licking its wounds, another is smacking it chops at what the future might hold for new combination approaches; how the tails have literally turned.

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