Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘GSK’

6 important things I learned from AACR 2014 on immuno-oncology

 

“Nothing lasts forever, because nothing ever has.”

James Shelley, The Caesura Letters

This year’s annual AACR meeting was so good, we could probably write another 50 posts and still not be done! With ASCO fast approaching, however, it’s almost time to draw it to a close and the final post conference note will be published on Monday.

Today is the penultimate report and focuses on the key highlights that caught my attention in immuno-oncology, which covers the gamut from checkpoint inhibitors, co-stimulants, innate immunotherapy and CAR T cell therapy to bispecific antibody TCRs.

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AACR 2014 Preview: Novel targets and approaches

For the third part of the series on the AACR Previews, I wanted to switch directions and take a broad look at five completely different approaches in cancer research that we haven’t discussed on Biotech Strategy before and look at how they are doing and which ones might be promising going forward. Some of these scientific developments could potentially impact existing compounds in development.

Companies mentioned: Exelixis, Roche/Genentech, GSK, Clovis, AstraZeneca, Oncoethix

Compounds discussed: cobimetinib, DEDN6526A, ipatasertib, dabrafenib, trametinib, OTX015, JQ1, CO–1686, AZD9291

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Update on anti-PD-L1 cancer immunotherapy

In the second part of our mini-series on immuno-oncology, I thought it would be a nice idea to share a recent interview conducted with one of Roche/Genentech’s leading researchers in this field.  I was particularly interested in their approach because while BMS and Merck have clearly focused on anti-PD-1, Roche and Genentech have effectively zigged with their development of an anti-PD-L1 inhibitor.  Does this matter?

Here, we explore the general background to this approach and, in particular, where the company are going with their anti-PD-L1 inhibitor, MPDL3280A.

Topics discussed:

anti-PD-L1, anti-PD-1, anti-CTLA-4, checkpoint point inhibitors, T cells, biomarkers.

Drugs mentioned:

MPDL3280A, nivolumab, MK-3475, ipilimumab (Yervoy), lirilumab, BMS-986016 (anti-LAG3), bevacizumab (Avastin), erlotinib (Tarceva), vemurafenib (Zelboraf), cobimetinib.

If you are interested in more background on how the PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors work, you can check out the mechanism of action (MOA) in our video preview from ASCO last year, which explains this in fairly simple terms.

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What to watch for at San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

Whew, having just finished the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting, we run on to the breast cancer symposium in San Antonio (SABCS), making for a very busy week of data deluge!  Our Post ASH analysis will also run concurrently for a few days.

There are also a number of interesting areas to look out for in terms of interesting breast cancer developments.

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Companies: Roche, GSK, AbbVie, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Lilly
Drugs: Herceptin, Avastin, Perjeta, Tykerb, veliparib, olaparib, BKM120, ramucirumab, PD-1, PD-L1

Here’s a quick preview of some of the landmark data emerging from this conference, some positive, some negative.

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ASH 2013 Preview: quick note on non-Hodgkins and Hodgkins lymphomas

Originally, I was thinking of doing an in-depth review of lymphomas i.e. non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL), which involve 85% of lymphomas and Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL), which take up the remaining 15%. This topic, however, has been largely done to death already.

There are are some very useful sources of carefully curated content that I enjoy following every year and in this post I’m going to direct you to some of those and highlight where I think the critical topics are in lymphomas.

Companies mentioned: Roche, GSK, AbbVie, Pharmacyclics, Gilead, Infinity, Seattle Genetics
Drugs mentioned: Rituxan, Arzerra, Gazyva, ABT-199, ibrutinib, idelalisib, IPI-145, Adcetris 

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