Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘neoantigens’

Up and coming cell therapy companies to watch out for

Is the early stage cell therapy landscape bleak or promising these days?  Perhaps it depends on which angle you look at the question.

Originally, I had planned to cover five preclinical cell therapy companies we hadn’t covered before, although this ended up as six with five intriguing ones, one I’m not a fan of, plus some additional really intriguing academic research in preclinical development, which may have some broader clinical applications many may have not realised yet.

We also highlight some emerging trends in this niche as early stage companies learn from what has gone before and begin to adapt their pipelines to address the challenges rather than merely be yet another me-too CD19 CAR whatever.

This inevitably means the emergence of new targets, modalities, technologies, and approaches…

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New trials and tribulations in drugging KRAS mutations

Is the ride going to be a thrilling long or disappointingly short one?

The KRAS niche continues to rattle on at an incredible pace with new findings, new trials, or even a new molecular entity (NME) coming along seemingly every month.

In this latest update on the landscape, we discuss some important new findings, as well as a novel agent to thing about in this space, which is quite different from what we have seen before.

To be clear – this doesn’t mean a novel approach doesn’t have any legs, nor that the latest science behind where we should be going with combinations is doomed.  Indeed, sometimes finding a balance is a bit akin to a highwire act.

The important thing is to focus on the learnings and determine where the field might be headed…

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Gritting it out

It’s time to switch gears and talk about neoantigens again… we’ve been covering this niche since 2015, as you can see from the relevant magazine page.

Aside from today’s expert interview, there will be an important update coming at ESMO in the Fall so this is a good time to set the scene ahead of time.

In our latest discussion, we cover some of the AI/deep learning aspects of the technological developments with a view to how they connect with the clinical challenges and progress since they don’t obviously exist in isolation.

As always there are important lessons and learnings along the way, such is the roller coaster of R&D, especially in oncology…

BSB subscribers can learn more about our latest interview on how deep learning can be applied to the neoantigen niche – you can read all about it by logging in or click to access our ongoing oncology coverage.

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ASCO21 Off the Beaten Track Part 2

Guess where today’s off the beaten track is from?

At major medical meetings such as ASCO21 we often hear the results of large clinical trials, many of which are dubbed “practice changing” but it’s worth remembering many of these breakthroughs first started out in the hidden corners of various poster halls, where the potential was spotted in preclinical experiments or as a signal seen in an early stage trial…

This is why we spend a lot of time at BSB looking at posters on discovery, translational and clinical data, reporting on emerging preclinical and early trial data, as well as diving deep into the science driving novel targets and biomarkers.

It turns out there are a number of novel pathways and targets at ASCO21 this year.  In this post, we’ve taken a look at several on our radar, which could be relevant if you’re interested in oncology new product development.  Where possible, we also highlight alternative perspectives from either other academic research groups or companies we have interviewed in the past for a broader perspective.

As always, we await the data to be presented at the meeting, but in a world where the challenge is figuring out the signals from the noise, this post offers a few thoughts off the well-beaten track of major clinical trials that we expect to be well covered during the meeting, and while we don’t have all the answers, we do have questions we hope the data will soon answer.

Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and join us off the beaten track in the run up to ASCO21…

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Une Baguette Magique

Quote of the Day from Tower Hill Tube station a couple of years ago is rather apt when comparing different cancer therapies

Every novel cancer immunotherapy has its day in the limelight, although it obviously goes without saying we shouldn’t compare them unless in a head-to-head trial.

What if the comparisons are made using the wrong parameters, however?

Well, this just compounds the problem further and does neither product nor company or researchers any justice.

This time around we continue the latest chapter in an story we have been following for several years now before it was really in many people’s conscience.

Sometimes it helps to go back to the beginning to see how far things have come, other times it is more useful to look in a broader context of the space it is competing in.

In this latest installment we attempt a look at both plus offer some commentary on how it could be viewed…

 

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JPM20 Highlights from Day 3

Downtown San Francisco

San Francisco — Amongst all the chaos and frenetic activity that abounds big Pharma at JPM each year, I always look forward to hearing what the smaller biotechs are up to on days 3 and 4, as well as seeing how far some of them have progressed since our previous update on their pipeline agents.

In this latest update, there are definitely some companies we have been following longitudinally who are either poised for future success and growth… or due for a correction if the promising science doesn’t pan out as expected in the clinic.

Indeed one of those companies has already hit success and disappointment in the last two months alone, such is the roller coaster that is oncology R&D.

Please note that this is a rolling blog, which means that numerous updates are added throughout the day as new information becomes available.

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Highlights from small biotechs at SITC 2019

Some of the upcoming coming small biotechs caught our attention and may turn out to be future stars

National Harbor – There were quite a few gems in the poster halls and oral presentations from up and coming small cap biotechs at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) meeting this year.

Who were they and what did we learn from them?

In the latest part of our latest SITC coverage we highlight 13 presentations – 11 from small biotechs and 2 academic abstracts – that caught our attention, explain what’s intriguing about them and why they matter.

There’s not a single big Pharma included (unless as a reference point or given in combination) since the focus is mainly on up and coming companies with their novel approaches.

The list is quite selective and not at all random from a list of over 850 abstracts.

So what stood out and what was special about them?

Some of the selections are likely hidden sleepers that few will be familiar with… they also cover a wide range of approaches, targets, different modalities and even strategic intent.

Even if you were at the SITC 2019 meeting, increasingly there were more business meetings taking up valuable time than sessions attended, so this is a great way to catch all the highlights for your trip report 😉

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ESMO19 Highlights from Day 1

Old Post Office in Barcelona

Barcelona – After the torrential rains that hit here earlier in the month at WCLC, it’s glorious weather in Barcelona for the 2019 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (#ESMO19).

Each day we’ll be providing highlights from the Congress with news, commentary and analysis from various presentations we’ve attended and thought leaders we’ve spoken to.

This ESMO Congress is a really exciting meeting, perhaps one of the busiest we’ve seen in recent years with multiple sessions in parallel to choose from. There are no shortage of data to discuss and review.  In distant years past, ESMO used to be known as the metaphorical dumping ground for negative trials that undoubtedly got lost in hurly burly – no longer! That changed after they started appearing in the Presidential Symposia and having the spotlight shone on the data. It’s now a much more vibrant meeting for clinical development, with an increasing translational focus thrown in too to explain the why and not just the what.  That’s good news for all of us.

To kick off our daily live ESMO coverage, we begin with sharing some useful insights gleaned from what we’ve heard so far plus more will be added throughout the day as we hear from the educational sessions later…

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Insights from CIMT in Mainz Part 1

Mainz, Germany: A grey and gloomy day by the river Rhine has been brightened up by the quality of science on display at the 2019 annual meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT) (Twitter: #CIMT2019).

Dr Nicky McGranahan presenting at CIMT 2019

We were last here in Mainz 18 months ago for the EACR-CIMT-AACR Immuno-Oncology conference.

Cancer immunotherapy remains a work in progress, however.

What’s increasingly becoming more important is understanding the science, in particular finding answers to critical “why” questions that help us to not only understand the biology of cancer, but also why some people respond and others don’t.

In this post, we describe some of the key highlights and have penned some thoughts on some of the oral talks and posters presented today.

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Chipping away at cancer

As we follow the journey of various neoantigen and neoepitope approaches from start-up and preclinical research through to the clinic, it’s been interesting to see how different companies and academic research groups have chosen to consider their R&D strategies.

Some of the companies we’ve interviewed and highlighted in this space include Neon Therapeutics, BioNTech, Gritstone, and newcomer, Achilles Therapeutics, along with various academic programs such as George Coukos’s neoepitope vaccine approach in Lausanne.

After we first spoke with Gritstone a couple of years ago, things seemed to go a bit quiet on the western front while Neon, BioNTech, and Achilles all had news to talk about. It’s always hard to choose from rock-paper-scissors and this may well be another modern twist of that genre until clinical data proves otherwise.

That all changed with more data being presented by the California-based biotech recently, plus patients are also being enrolled into their first neoantigen clinical trial.

At a recent conference, we caught up with their CMO, Dr Raphael Rousseau, to find out more about where they are and importantly, where they’re headed…

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