Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Medivation’

Thunderbirds are GO!

It’s the end of April and just in time for two important things here on BSB…

Dan Chen and Ira Mellman on Novel Targets PodcastA) Season 2 of our Novel Targets podcast has now kicked off!

The first show (sponsored by Genentech) explores the cancer immunity cycle (CIC), how it can help see the bigger picture and how this framework can be used to help figure out what areas are missing when patients don’t respond to immunotherapy.

There are also predictions about what we will see coming up in the next year – will the crystal ball be accurate – or not?

Crank up the Sonos, grab a coffee, pen and paper – you’ll find the latest podcast show here (Link), which is open access for anyone who wants to listen.

B) Reader Q&A Mailbag: we tackle your latest tough questions that are top of mind and offer insights on the hot topics people want to know about.

We have a broad range of topics to cover today including:

  • The battle for PD-1 sales
  • What are the IO bottlenecks where we can expect to see new research focus
  • Sanofi-Medivation bid
  • AbbVie snapping up StemcentRx

To learn more, Subscribers can log-in or you can purchase a subscription.

This content is restricted to subscribers

ECC Vienna Preview 2 Oral Presentations

Beyond the late breaking abstracts and plenary sessions at the European Cancer Conference being held in Vienna, Austria later this month, what other important topics can we expect to hear about?

We covered the former in the last article on Biotech Strategy Blog, today we turn our attention to the proffered (oral) sessions and what we can learn from those sessions and the expected data that is due to be presented.

There are a number of interesting topics and new data slated for presentation that are worthy of review and highlighting in a What To Watch out For (W2W4) format.

Here’s our take on the potential highlights at the meeting.

To learn more insights on this intriguing topic, subscribers can log-in or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

Biotech Strategy questions answered on neratinib, bavituximab, enzalutamide and more!

In today’s post, it’s time to address a bunch of questions we’ve received over the last few weeks from subscribers about the latest and – not so greatest – in cancer research.

Sometimes these queries are fairly straightforward to answer, other times requires some sleuthing and hunting down thought leaders for some additional context and insights… For obvious reasons, these folks are best caught in person at cancer conferences such as AACR and ASCO.  The feedback isn’t always sparkly and positive though, it can also be gloom and doom, just like the inclement weather!

So here goes, questions on the following are covered in the article below:

  • Neratinib
  • Bavituximab
  • Gilead
  • Enzalutamide
  • MDSCs

To learn more insights on this intriguing topic, subscribers can log-in or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

Targeting MYC – the undruggable protein – or is it?

Have you ever sat in a freezing cold scientific session and been so engrossed in the compelling presentations that followed, you simply forgot to take notes? Not one. That actually happened to me at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Philadelphia this year in one of the many fringe sessions that I attended.

Granted, the hot topic of the conference was undoubtedly checkpoint inhibition, but I was anxious to escape to the comfort of some meaty and familiar basic and translational science, namely MYC.  MYC is largely thought to be a difficult to target, even undruggable protein, and along with RAS and p53, represents a formidable challenge for cancer researchers.  These three oncogenic proteins alone are probably responsible for more drug resistance developing and even death from cancer than any other proteins in a patient with advanced disease.

For cancer patients with advanced disease, the clock is ticking on time they have left.

Solve these three problems (MYC, RAS and p53) and we may have a shot at dramatically improving outcomes. As Dr Gerard Evan (Cambridge) noted:

“I think it’s fair to say that we don’t really know why interruption of any oncogenic signal actually kills cancer cells, but one of the reasons that we’re interested in MYC is because it seems to be a common downstream effector of many, maybe all cancers.”

Sure, the road to success is paved with an enormous graveyard of failures, just as metastatic melanoma was before checkpoint blockade came along, ironically.  What I heard at AACR both inspired and filled me with greater confidence… we’re finally getting somewhere.

Subscribers can log-in to read our latest insights or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

Enzalutamide beats bicalutamide in advanced prostate cancer

There’s nothing better than seeing good news in the early morning email alerts I have set up on cancer research!

Today, it was the turn of Astellas and Medivation to announce the results of the TERRAIN study, which is a primarily European phase 2 trial that began in March 2011 in the prechemotherapy setting for castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The trial met its primary endpoint of progression free survival (PFS).

Why is this an important landmark in CRPC and what does the initial data show?

To learn more about these sentiments and insights, subscribers can log-in or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content below… 

This content is restricted to subscribers

AACR 2014: Review of novel targeted approaches in lung and prostate cancers

We hope that everyone had a relaxing holiday break and now it’s time to get back to work.  Tomorrow I will review some more of my thoughts in the immuno-oncology space, since that area had a tremendous amount of progress in San Diego with lots of new ideas to process and summarise.

In the meantime, a few people have written in and asked about what was happening with overcoming resistance in various tumour types, was there anything new to say in that space that was in addition to the the detailed previews we covered before the conference?

Actually, there was a quite a few posters and presentations that caught my eye, so I thought this would be a good idea to review them here:

Lung Cancer: HER2, VEGF, T790M, EGFR, erlotinib, gefitinib, trastuzumab, bevacizumab, CO-1686, AZD9291

Prostate Cancer: mTOR, PI3K, Androgen Receptor, enzalutamide, abiraterone, CC214–2, ARN–509, BET Bromodomian inhibition, ODM–201, GDC–0980, GDC-0068, PF–04691502, BKM120, BEZ235

Subscribers can log-in to read our latest insights or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

ASCO GU Interview with Dr Tom Beer on Medivation PREVAIL trial data

This week we turn our focus to the American Society of Clinical Oncology Genitourinary (ASCO GU) symposium being held in San Francisco.

The hottest topic is highly likely to be the Medivation and Astellas data for enzalutamide (Xtandi) in the pre-chemotherapy setting in men with advanced prostate cancer who are asymptomatic or slightly symptomatic and naive to chemotherapy.  Previously, I wrote in detail about the Medivation announcement regarding the interim analysis where the PREVAIL trial was found to meet its primary endpoint (open access).

The company subsequently stated that the data had been accepted as a late breaker for the the ASCO Genitourinary meeting in San Francisco this weekend.  That data is being presented on Thursday morning in the oral prostate cancer session by Dr Tomasz Beer (OHSU), who is the Deputy Director of the Knight Cancer Institute and a prostate cancer specialist.

The ASCO GU 2014 abstracts will be available for perusing as of 5pm ET today.

This week I caught up with Dr Beer to discuss not only the details relating to the PREVAIL data, but also how enzalutamide (Xtandi) potentially fits in the advanced prostate cancer competitive landscape given that he also participated in the abiraterone (Zytiga) COU-AA-302 trial in the same clinical setting.

To learn more insights on this intriguing topic, subscribers can log-in or you can purchase access to BSB Premium Content. 

This content is restricted to subscribers

American Urological Association Annual Meeting 2011 Satellite Symposia

By on May 12, 2011

I am off to Washington DC tomorrow for the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA).

If you are not able to attend, then you can follow the Twitter coverage on Pharma Strategy Blog where Sally Church (@MaverickNY) will be aggregating the tweets.  The conference hashtag is #AUA2011.  I also expect to be live-tweeting from the conference.

Follow 3NT on Twitter

Like many medical conferences in the United States, the AUA meeting kicks off with independent continuing medical education (CME) satellite symposia on topics of interest.

As a lawyer who has to pay for his own continuing legal education (CLE) credits, I have to confess that I am somewhat cynical that other professionals such as physicians expect to have their CME paid for through free industry-sponsored events.  These symposia are certainly not cheap to run.

However, compared with Europe, CME events in the United States are usually well-produced and fair balanced, albeit with a topical theme that obviously relates to the sponsor’s interest.

The two satellite symposia that I will be attending at AUA are Friday evening’s Amgen supported “Managing Skeletal-Related Events in Patients with Prostate Cancer” and the Saturday morning Astellas/Medivation supported “Reason for Hope: Key Advances in the Management of Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer.”

While at Quintiles, I was lead CRA/European Project Manager for the phase III trial trial of risedronate in elderly women at risk of hip fracture, so I am interested in bone related treatments, and am looking forward to hearing more about denosumab (Xgeva®) and its impact on skeletal related events (SRE).

Oliver Sartor (Tulane) raises some excellent questions in a recent paper published in the Asian Journal of Andrology, “if a patient has a SRE, does it affect the way a patient feels, functions or survives?”

Sartor argues that a better definition of the benefit a drug has on SRE’s would be “a reduction in pain, analgesic consumption or improvement in quality of life (QoL)” instead of the current “feel, function or survive” standard.

He notes that patients with bone-metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) have a limited life expectancy, so that QoL is a key issue. “An asymptomatic event linked to a future adverse event is less meaningful in a patient with metastatic CRPC.”

Sartor concluded his paper by saying:

“The lack of effect of bisphosphonates or denosumab on patient-reported outcomes including QoL, pain or analgesic consumption continues to be a disappointment for this entire field.”

When we talk about a reduction in SRE’s what does this really mean for the patient?  I look forward to hearing what the expert panel at Friday evening’s symposia on this topic and hope it will be addressed.

Moving on to the other satellite symposium, supported by Medivation/Astellas, that I will be attending early on Saturday morning.  I expect this symposium will focus on new drugs in the pipeline such as MDV3011 and ARN-509 that target the androgen receptor. Hopefully they will also discuss other therapeutics, such as the recently approved abiraterone acetate (Zytiga®), as well TAK-700, which has a similar mechanism of action to abiraterone, i.e. they both inhibit CYP17 and testosterone production.

I’m looking forward to hearing what the expert panel has to say about the need to take prednisone with abiraterone, and whether there are any issues surrounding long-term usage if abiraterone ends up being used earlier in the pre-chemotherapy setting.  Updated data from the COU-AA-301 trial will be presented at AUA on Monday, and I expect a lot of interest from urologists in this.

The satellite symposia are set to be a good warm up act to the start of the main AUA meeting that runs from May 14 to 19 in Washington DC.  I’ll be writing more from the AUA 2011 over the next few days.

ResearchBlogging.orgSartor, O. (2011). Denosumab in bone-metastatic prostate cancer: known effects on skeletal-related events but unknown effects on quality of life Asian Journal of Andrology DOI: 10.1038/aja.2011.33

error: Content is protected !!