Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘immuno-oncology’

AACR19 Preview of Cancer Immunotherapy Sessions – Part 2

Centennial Olympic Park, Atlanta

In the first part of our preview we looked at the cancer immunotherapy related program from Friday through Sunday at the AACR 2019 (#AACR19) annual meeting at the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) in Atlanta.

This post looks at the program from Monday to Wednesday – you can find a review of the IO track for Fri-Sat here.

Don’t forget you can review the precise room details via the AACR meeting app prior to attending sessions as these are sometimes subject to change. We’ve based our posts on the preliminary program and it is highly likely there will be changes to meeting rooms, based on past experience.

If you’d like to read more about our current conference preview on cancer immunotherapy, subscribers can log-in to read our latest review of what’s going on or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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AACR19 Preview of Cancer Immunotherapy Sessions – Part 1

We’re starting our review of the program for the forthcoming 2019 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (Twitter hashtag to follow: #AACR19) with a look at the cancer immunotherapy program.

One of the challenges of a large meeting is that it’s like a smorgasbord or buffet in a hotel that’s resplendent in choices, but you can’t possibly eat it all.

Choices!

Some choose to follow a research area, others a target or tumor type. There’s a lot of ways to segment the program depending on your specific interests.

However, it’s a good idea to have a plan in place ahead of a large conference such as AACR, even if you modify it as you go to take into account evolving needs.

Seasoned conference goers will be familiar with the maxim known as “the law of two feet” – if a session you are in doesn’t live up to expectations or meet your needs and something else looks more to your taste from the tweets, then simply dash off to another!

In our latest conference preview, we’ve taken a careful look at the cancer immunotherapy track.

What are some of the key sessions to put on your calendar if you’re following this track or have an interest in this area?

In Part 1, we review the IO sessions from Friday to Sunday then tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll review the schedule from Monday to Wednesday.  Yes, it’s that intense this year! Just think, five years ago you had to search the program really quite hard indeed to even find much on immuno-oncology, as it was very much in its infancy then.

If you’d like to read more about our latest cancer conference preview, subscribers can log-in to read our latest thought leader interview or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

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August 2017 BSB Journal Club on Breast Cancer

Recently there has been a glut of encouraging new research published on the topic of breast cancer that is well worth perusing as a group, since new combination studies may emerge from these kind of data.

In this month’s Journal Club edition, we explore five such articles plus some related research in support of the main themes.

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Jumpstarting the immune system with synthetic immunity

Here we are with Part 2 of our latest mini-series on novel ways to jumpstart the immune system so that subsequent therapy can be more effective, leading to improved outcomes.

In Part 1, we looked at the preclinical and scientific evidence regarding a novel approach to modulate a cold or non-inflamed tumour type, thereby turning the phenotype into a hotter or inflamed one.

In principle, this concept sounds quite simple in theory, but in practice it’s actually much more technically challenging to do than many realise, especially when we consider not just the design of the antibody itself and perhaps even efficacy, but also the convenience of administration and tolerability, both as monotherapy and also in combination with other therapies.

What’s up on deck today is not one, but three interviews, offering readers a candid look through the keyhole at varied insights from different perspectives around a central R&D topic, namely…

What do you do when you have a new compound in clinical development and wish to explore how to integrate it – do you use it with an existing framework or try something new and different? What about other compounds that might be competing with it internally?

It’s a question every single oncology company faces when a new molecule moves out of preclinical development into phase 1 trials. What next?

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Can epigenetic therapy boost cancer immunotherapy?

In our latest thought leader interview we explore the intersection between epigenetic therapy and immunotherapy.

Gems from the ASCO17 poster hall

Much of the IO focus to date has been on monotherapies rather than combos, although that situation is slowly changing.

What we can also expect to see are the emergence of regimens, long the bedrock of traditional cancer therapy approaches.

As we learn how to bucket more discrete populations based on the underlying biology of the tumour microenvironment, so we will see a more IFTTT (If this then that) approach evolve in order to fix or improve a situation before or after attempting the core therapy. It might require a focus on changing the immunosuppressive or inhibitory factors, for example, or addressing factors that induce primary resistance upfront. The possibilities are endless.

Obviously, there are a number of ways to do this from chemotherapy and radiotherapy to epigenetic agents to targeted therapies – these traditional treatments are not going to go away, but I can see a future where we see more integration based on a patient’s underlying immune status. It won’t be the zero sum game many analysts seem to think it might be.

In the past, we have covered chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted therapies and looked at how they might be employed with immunotherapies in various guises. In this latest thought leader interview, we look at a different approach, epigenetic therapy and other novel immunotherapies.

Here, we combine two popular types of posts – Gems from the Poster Halls with an Expert Interview  – for detailed look at one particular area of research that is beginning to look quite intriguing.

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Biotech Strategy Blog Mailbag Monday

Lindt Gold BunnyWhat questions are BSB readers sending in to us this month?

I wanted to take a moment out of AACR Previews and catch up on some recent news that is intriguing or perplexing subscribers. All questions are anonymous and in many cases, the same questions were actually sent in by multiple people, a testament to what’s top of mind in oncology lately.

Today, we cover a Q&A on a variety of topics on Kite Pharma (the Genentech collaboration and their TCR in solid tumours), a discussion about EGVRvIII in glioblastoma, and Gilead’s woes with idelalisib and an IO pipeline.

So let’s get started – subscribers can sign-in…

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Immunotherapy for Lymphoma using T cells Targeting Multiple Tumor-Associated Antigens

Aloha! It will soon be time to pack your Hawaiian shirts for the forthcoming BMT Tandem Meeting in Hawaii (Twitter #BMTTandem16 – what a long hashtag!!)

ASBMT_2016WebBanner_b

Commonly known as “Tandem,” it’s the combined annual meetings of the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) and the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT).

Hawaii is great location for a meeting in February, and one that I’m sure will generate a lot of envy for those who can’t attend and are stuck in the winter cold and chill. Who said we don’t go the “extra mile” for BSB subs?

One of the presentations I’m looking forward to hearing at Tandem is by Ann Leen, PhD, who is an Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr Leen will be talking about “Immunotherapy for Lymphoma using T cells Targeting Multiple Tumor-Associated Antigens.”

At last December’s ASH annual meeting, Dr Leen presented preliminary data with this novel approach in patients with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). After her ASH presentation, she kindly spoke to BSB.

This post is part of our post-meeting ASH15 coverage, and our ongoing coverage of some of the exciting developments in immuno-oncology.  In case you missed it, do check out the ASH interview with Seattle Genetics CEO Clay Siegall, PhD.

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Why didn’t Ipilimumab plus Chemo work in Metastatic Urothelial Cancer?

Streets of San FranciscoOne of the interesting immuno-oncology presentations at the recent ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco from Jan 7 – 9, 2016 was presented by Dr Matt Galsky (Mount Sinai, New York).

Dr Galsky presented the results of a phase II trial of gemcitabine plus cisplatin plus ipilimumab in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer: HCRN GU-148 (Abstract 357).

The trial failed to reach its primary endpoint of showing a 20% increase in 1 year overall survival by the addition of ipilimumab compared to historical data for Gem + Cis in this patient population.

Many in the media don’t write up what is in essence “negative” data, but this trial is highly informative for those with an interest in urothelial cancer and in the optimal strategy for cancer immunotherapy. The GU16 discussant Dr Elizabeth Plimack (Fox Chase) raised many questions that merit consideration by those in the field.

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Gut Bacteria Impact Checkpoint Inhibitor efficacy

Readers may recall at the 2014 annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) we wrote about the work of Dr Marcel van den Brink (MSKCC) on how the composition of bacteria in the gut can have an impact on graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), and survival post bone marrow transplant. See post: Can you reduce Graft versus Host Disease GvHD by regulating gut bacteria?

At SITC 2015, we heard from Dr Tom Gajewski (University of Chicago) who presented work from his laboratory, recently published in Science, that shows the gut microbiota can also impact the efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors.

Tom Gajewski SITC 2015

Dr Gajweski is one of the foremost cancer immunotherapy researchers in the United States. He previously spoke with BSB about his work on the STING pathway, and how the tumor microenvironment impacts checkpoint inhibitor efficacy. See post: Tom Gajewski takes the STING out of Cancer.

In his extremely busy schedule at SITC, Dr Gajewski found a few minutes to talk about his latest research and future plans.

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