Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘ibrutinib’

The Changing CLL Landscape Part 1

Targeted therapy and Chemo-Immunotherapy in CLL

At last December’s 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, one of the areas that attracted attention was the latest clinical data on the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

ASH 2016 in San Diego

In recent years, we’ve seen tremendous advances in the field with several new agents approved such as obintuzumab, ibrutinib, idelalisib, and venetoclax. There are also new treatment options available for CLL patients with high risk disease such as 17p deletions (Del17p).

Other new targeted therapies such as acalabrutinib are now in clinical development, plus we have CAR T cell therapies and combination strategies also being evaluated in the clinic.

So what was the hot news from #ASH16 in CLL?

  • Does chemotherapy still have a role or is it a targeted therapy world?
  • Are we further forward towards a cure?
  • Have we worked out how to identify those at risk of relapse?
  • Will CAR T cell therapy be a game changer in CLL?
  • Is financial toxicity going to be an issue with combination strategies?

BSB interviewed two experts in CLL while in San Diego who kindly shared their thoughts on which CLL data impressed them at the ASH annual meeting and discussed some of the big strategic issues facing the field right now. These interviews are being posted in a two-part series.

Part 1 today answers some of the questions highlighted above and explores the changing face of the broader CLL landscape.

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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!

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ASH16 Abstracts are out! So What’s Hot at ASH16? My Initial Impressions

The abstracts (apart from the late-breakers) for the 2016 annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (Twitter #ASH16) went live at 9am ET today. Link to 2016 ASH Abstracts.

ASH16 takes place in San Diego from December 3-6.

View of San Diego from ASH 2011In this initial post, I’m sharing my first impressions of what may be some hotly contested trials at ASH16 in San Diego, as well as a few intriguing abstracts with combination data that caught my attention.

With over 3,000 oral and poster presentations, all typically of a high quality, this by post by definition, is a highly subjective one.

After we’ve had more time to process the data, further ASH16 Previews will roll out over the next few weeks highlighting more key abstracts to watch out for by tumour type or treatment modality.

In-depth commentary and analysis will follow after we’ve heard or seen the data presented at the meeting.

I’ll be flying to ASH from the EORTC-NCI-AACR Molecular Targets meeting. Do say “hello” if you have plans to be in Munich or San Diego.

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Gems from the Poster Hall at AACR16 – Part 1

After looking at one important poster yesterday on multiple myeloma, it’s time to explore other equally interesting targets in other tumour types.

Some years reflect the inertia that hit oncology R&D with a lot of old data rehashed or they can be flooded with many me-too compounds.  Not this year, there’s a lot to talk about and review… so much so that we may well have enough for three rounds of Gems from the Poster Halls, time permitting as ASCO is fast approaching!

Without much further ado, for round 1 we have explored eight posters spanning four companies with a variety of different targets including chemotherapy, targeted therapies and immunotherapies.  I will say though, that the lines are being blurred as all of these modalities can impact the immune system, sometimes in unexpected ways.

What’s in store for today?  A focus on biotech companies doing intriguing cancer research.

Companies mentioned: Infinity, Innate, Incyte, Agenus

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New Horizons in CLL Treatment

ASH Exhibit HallIn recent years, there’s been a lot of progress in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). New targeted therapies such as ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and idelalisib (Zydelig) have been approved and have helped extend the lives of patients with this disease further. However, there still remains a need for new treatment options.

Several new drugs are on the horizon for CLL.  At ASH there were a number of presentations for venetoclax, formerly known as ABT-199/GDC-0199, it’s a BCL-2 inhibitor, which is being co-developed by AbbVie and Genentech.  We’ve written extensively about it on the blog.  One of the challenges with venetoclax is the potential for Tumor Lysis Syndrome (TLS) – we heard at ASH that starting a patient on the drug needs to be carefully managed and monitored, with high risk patients hospitalized.

Other new drugs on the longer term horizon for CLL include acalabrutinib (Acerta) and BGB-3111 (BeiGene), both next generation BTK inhibitors and potential competitive threats to ibrutinib. The CLL market is becoming interesting again!

At ASH 2015, I spoke with Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD. Director, Blood Cancer Research Program at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, TN. At ASH, Dr Flinn presented data for a CLL trial of venetoclax combined with obinutuzumab, a CD20 targeted monoclonal antibody; data was obtained in both the upfront and relapsed/refractory setting.

In a wide ranging conversation, we talked about some of the data of note in Orlando, what the future direction is in CLL, and what to look forward to at ASH 2016.

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ASH15 Preview on Aggressive Lymphomas

Aggressive lymphoma… the very phrase is enough to send chills down your spine!

ASH Annual MeetingIn the past, much of the focus at previous American Society of Hematology (ASH) meetings in this area has focused on the myriad of chemotherapy regimens and dose/schedule optimisations that followed in trying to boost patient outcomes.

This year, I’m pleased to say that things have quite a different flavour with numerous new therapeutics and promising combinations in development.

Some of these are inevitably hypothesis testing, while others will be up-levelling to large randomised controlled multi-centre trials.

As part of our ongoing preview series, we take a look at the different categories to watch out for beyond chemotherapy.  These include monoclonal antibodies, antibody drug conjugates, targeted therapies and yes, even immunotherapies.

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How to enhance checkpoint inhibitors in hematologic malignancies

It’s time to answer some more subscriber questions. Several readers wrote in and asked about the anti-PD1 checkpoint data that was presented at the recent American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in classic Hodgkin’s lymphoma (cHL):

What did we think of it?

Well, for starters it was one of our highlights of the ASH 2014 conference (see quick write-up, open access), with an impressive 87% response rate for nivolumab in refractory cHL. Many of these patients had failed both autologous stem cell transplant and brentuximab (Adcetris), for which FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation.

ASH14 CHECKPOINTSOverall, I agreed with Ron Levy (Stanford) when he noted in the packed Special Session on Checkpoint inhibitors in Hematology that there were only 4 or 5 abstracts to actually discuss (he didn’t spend much time on the preliminary data) and that the results are still very early without seeing how good the durability will be.

As he observed in the session, which was standing room only, figuring out how best to integrate these new agents into clinical practice with other successful approaches will be most interesting.

That said, there are some new data that have emerged since ASH that are worthy of discussion in terms of potential future directions and how they could impact the checkpoint landscape in both hematologic malignancies and even solid tumours.

This is part of our ongoing immuno-oncology series on how we can manipulate T cells in creative ways to kill the cancer cells.  The findings discussed in this article are completely new and have not been discussed here before.

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Which therapies will stand out in the CLL market?

One of the things I most enjoy in cancer research is hearing wonderful patient stories from oncologists who are at the coal face of clinical trials. They get to deal with death and dying every day and like those in Pharma R&D, also live for the successes, the drugs that make it through pipeline despite great odds against them and make a meaningful impact on the daily lives of ordinary people.

We’ve all heard topline data presented at medical conferences around the world, but what the summary data can’t tell you is how a drug can impact people in ways that are clinically meaningful yet are more obtuse to capture in the aggregate. This is why case studies at CME sessions are increasingly popular, because they add value and context to common issues in a way that a Kaplan-Meier curve can never do.

Zydelig_logoWith the flurry of recent US and EU approvals for obinutuzumab (Gazyva), ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and the newest kid on the block, idelalisib (Zydelig), in CLL and indolent lymphomas, I wanted to take a look at these drugs from a different perspective.

A reader wrote in asking which of these new agents would emerge the winner and why?

Today’s post therefore offers some thoughts on the emerging CLL landscape now that we are shifting from new product development to the marketplace.

Drugs mentioned: Gazyva, Imbruvica, Zydelig, ABT–199/GDC–0199, Arzerra, IPI–145, CTL–019
Companies: Roche/Genentech, J&J/Pharmacyclics, Gilead, GSK, Infinity, Novartis

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ASCO 2014 CLL and iNHL Preview #ASCO14

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and indolent non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (iNHL) have received significant attention over the last two years. More exciting new therapies than ever before – with multiple different mechanisms of action – have either recently come to market or are in development.

There is an ongoing revolution in the CLL landscape and treatment of the disease, which above all else is good news for patients! As part of our ongoing longitudinal coverage, there’s a lot to discuss and catch up on in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

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ASH 2013: New BTK Inhibitor ONO-4059 shows early promise in CLL – is it a future competitor to ibrutinib?

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) was one of the hot topics at this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and a new CLL drug that caught my attention was the second-generation Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) inhibitor ONO-4059 from Ono Pharmaceuticals.

Professor Gilles Salles (Lyon, France) presented promising efficacy data from a phase 1 study of ONO-4059 in relapsed/refractory CLL and high risk CLL (#676).

Unfortunately after his presentation, Prof Salles declined my request for a quick interview citing a prior commitment with a large pharma company and subsequently failed to turn up for an agreed interview the next day. Talking about ONO-4059, at least with the media, did not appear to be a priority!

However, as a potential competitor to other BTK inhibitors in development such as ibrutinib (Pharmacyclics/JNJ) and CC-292 (Celgene/Avila) it’s worthy of a mention in the conference coverage and a quick post about the data presented.

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