Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘ide-cel’

Gunning for new targets, new approaches

Gunning for new targets, new modalities, and fresh directions

As we look at various emerging early stage oncology pipelines and think about future rising stars, there are a few which stand out for their sheer depth and breadth.

There are some intriguing similarities between them in they have forged multiple collaborations with selective young biotechs over the last few years rather than rely solely on in-house production.

In our latest review, we look at one of these companies and discuss how the various pillars they have chosen to focus on not only fit together, but also lend themselves to cross modality fusion.

The end result is a vibrant pipeline capable of fueling their life cycle management portfolio for quite a few years to come…

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Trials and Tribulations

Lifting the bridge in downtown Chicago

It’s time to talk turkey about CAR-T cell therapies!

No this isn’t a story about a certain biotech in Maryland, but rather a look at progress in solid tumours, an area where CAR-T cell therapies have struggled with persistence and durability while their IO antibody counterparts have largely excelled.

Can it be done?

What kind of challenges need to be tackled and how is progress being made?

To find out more, check out our commentary from ASCO below…

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Strategic direction and future impacts in multiple myeloma

Shining a light on hidden gems in the myeloma niche

If we want to go beyond the proteasome inhibitors, IMiDs and anti-CD38 antibodies in multiple myeloma, there are plenty of emerging candidates these days.

This is excellent news, but how will it all fit together, and which gems were under-rated at the recent ASH meeting?

The latter may catch a few people by surprise when the clinical aspects are considered in the totality of what needs to be done and in which patient subsets.

We discuss near and medium term aspects, which may have a lasting impact and also talk about why they matter.

To find out, the final part of our myeloma mini-series offers an engaging and thoughtful fireside chat with a global thought leader in this niche…

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Looking through the window at the cilta-cel data

As part of our latest mini-series focusing on multiple myeloma, yesterday we looked at the BMS approach to tackling multiple myeloma with a variety of different modalities against BCMA and other targets.

Today it’s the turn of J&J’s Janssen to be in the BSB hot seat.

In the first part of the company interview today, we take a look at their current and strategic directions in CAR-T cell therapies, including some thought leader reactions. In the second part tomorrow morning we discuss what they are doing with their T cell engagers against different targets in multiple myeloma.

To learn more from our oncology analysis and get a heads up on the latest insights and analysis pertaining to the multiple myeloma landscape, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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An exciting pipeline of early stage oncology agents from BMS

Over the last decade we have seen great strides taking place in the field of multiple myeloma as the disease has moved from an acute to a more chronic one with the advent of proteasome inhibitors and IMiDs. We’re still not curing many people, however.

The good news is there is now a raft of completely different agents with varying novel targets and modalities emerging at a rapid pace in early to near-term clinical development.

This raises some important strategic questions to think about for the future way beyond which ones look most promising because the bigger question is how will new regimens evolve to challenge the standard of care in each line of treatment?

CAR-T cell therapies are certainly in the mix here, but where will they be optimally used in the future, how do we go about figuring out which people should receive which particular option?

The issues at stake are much more complex than simply asking which BCMA directed therapy is going to be the ‘winner’ because myeloma doesn’t work like this given the preponderence of doublet and triplet regimens.

A better way of exploring new opportunities will be to consider who has what synergies with whom and how might they fit together in a more cogent and coherent fashion.

In order to explore the evolving multiple myeloma landscape, we decided to take a step back and explore the new options from a more strategic perspective. To accomplish this, we interviewed two companies who are active in this niche as well as some specialist thought leaders. It’s a highly relevant time to consider the issues given the broad discussions likely to emerge at JPM21 this week.

We kick off the latest mini-series with a look at the BMS pipeline opportunities in myeloma, who will be followed by J&J tomorrow, and finally discussion with a global expert on Wednesday – so without much ado, let’s roll!

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ASH Day 1 highlights and lowlights Part 2

The first day of ASH oral presentations brought some unexpected surprises from several quarters, both good and not so good.

In this second review of the highlights, we cover some important translational research, as well as various clinical studies in both AML and multiple myeloma.

The latter focuses on discussing some subtleties and nuances to watch out for in the BCMA CAR T cell space.  A number of people have been declaring ‘wins’ to different products across the board, but it’s way too early to call at this stage given phase 1 trials do not always predict what will happen in pivotal registration trials.  There are also some challenges to address along the way so we put these findings in context.

To learn more from our oncology analysis and get a heads up on the latest insights and commentary pertaining to the ASH meeting — subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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Potential new targets and biomarkers for immunotherapy

While it is universally true much more attention is focused on success in clinical trials in the sense of patients who respond well to a particular therapy, this doesn’t mean we can’t learn from people who tumours either don’t respond to treatment up front or relapse early.

In our latest review, we look at three different examples of what we can learn from biomarkers of T cell exhaustion with both CAR-T cell therapies (with two different targets) as well as immune checkpoint blockade.

In short, there’s more to think about beyond antigen loss and target downregulation.

Why does this matter?

Well if we can identify markers of early relapse then we can either intervene earlier and switch to another therapy or we can add something else in to try and rescue the patient’s immune response.

Here we discuss some of the scientific findings from different research labs and explore how the information uncovered may be key to either future novel developments or clinical strategies with current immunotherapy approaches…

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Hematology Winners and Losers at ASCO20

Not in Chicago: It’s that time of the year when my inbox rapidly fills up with folks wanting to know which were selections our winners and losers from the annual ASCO meeting.

Happy or surreal days?

There are several different ways we can organise this analysis such as Top 10 selections, by company, by trials, by product, by tumour type, by disease setting etc. The first is undoubtedly easier and shorter to write, but in general it’s really hard to pick five winners and five losers to debate and some years are more mixed in any case.

At BSB we almost rarely think about oncology R&D in terms of companies, stocks, or even individual studies per se, so this leaves organising products by tumour type and subsets.

In part 1 today we are going to focus on hematology and key developments in this area. What was under-rated, over-rated and what bombed?

There are several developments which made our short list and here we cover the highs and lows as well as a pithy ratings scale at the end. Be warned, there are likely a few surprises in store…

To learn more from our oncology analysis and get a heads up on insights and commentary emerging from the ASCO meeting, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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