Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘Roche’

CD40 as a Cancer Immunotherapy Target

There are now several CD40 agonist antibodies in early clinical development from several different companies, including:

  • Roche – RO7009789
  • Apexigen – APX005M
  • Seattle Genetics – SEA-CD40
  • Alligator Bioscience – ADC–1013

This post is the last in our cancer immunotherapy coverage from the European Cancer Congress in Vienna. It features excerpts from an interview with Dr Christian Rommel, head of oncology discovery at Roche in Basle, Switzerland in which he talks about the development of their CD40 monoclonal antibody. Readers may recall we wrote about this from SITC 2014 last year: “Targeting CD40 in Cancer Immunotherapy.”

This post is also a new primer on CD40 as we start our coverage of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2015 annual meeting. We’re informed by SITC it’s a sell out conference with 600 more people than last year’s record breaking number. Cancer Immunotherapy is indeed the hottest topic in cancer drug development.

If you have plans to be at National Harbor this week, we hope to see you there!

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How do we boost the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors?

One thing has become very clear in the oncology space over the last year… checkpoint inhibitors are insufficient on their own for the vast majority of tumour types and patients that they have been explored in to date.  There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is lack of T cells in the tumour, which enable an effective immune response to be mounted.

This begs the question – how can we address that issue and manipulate the tumour microenvironment in our favour, thereby making subsequent checkpoint blockade more effective?

There are a number of different ways to do this.

In the past, we’ve discussed several methods including innate immunotherapies such as Aduro’s STING or Biothera’s immunotherapeutic, Imprime PGG.  Other approaches include vaccines, which we have discussed in detail, t-cell receptors (TCR) or even monoclonal antibodies, such as AdaptImmune’s approach with their ImmTac technology.

There are other novel strategies currently being investigated by numerous companies too.

In this article – and also the second part of the latest miniseries – which will post tomorrow, we straddle our final reviews of interesting data from the European Cancer Conference (ECC) in Vienna with the upcoming one from the Society of Immunotherapy for Cancer (SITC) being held in National Harbor, Maryland.

Today’s post explores the concept of immunocytokines, engineered antibodies that are designed to boost the immune system, so that subsequent therapies will be more effective.

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Is ocrelizumab a game changer in MS?

At the 2015 European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) meeting Barcelona on Friday, Dr Stephen Hauser (UCSF) presented the data for octrelizumab, an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, on behalf of the investigators in the OPERA trial.  This study compared octrelizumab to a standard of care at the time the study started i.e. IFN β-1a (Rebif).

Roche previously announced that ocrelizumab is the first investigational medicine to show positive pivotal study results in both relapsing and primary progressive forms of multiple sclerosis (MS):

  • Ocrelizumab showed superiority to interferon beta-1a (Rebif®) in two identical Phase III studies in people with relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS), the most common form of the disease.
  • Ocrelizumab is the first investigational medicine to show efficacy in people with primary progressive MS in a large Phase III study.

In addition, Dr Montalban presented the latest data for octrelizumab in primary progressive MS versus placebo (there are no approved therapies for this segment) on behalf of the ORATORIO investigators.

Here on BSB we have extensively covered other anti-CD20 monoclonal antibodies such as rituximab, ofatumumab and obinutuzumab in oncology indications specifically associated with hematologic malignancies, so what’s special about this same target and the results in MS with a different chemical entity?

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Where are the breakthroughs coming in Soft Tissue Sarcoma?

Sarcoma is something we call one disease but actually represents 50-70 different histologies, which poses challenges for drug development.  Not only do you have to identify what’s the unique target, but it’s hard to accrue patients into trials, when a major center may only see a few of each sub-type.

Soft tissue sarcoma is an area of unmet medical need, and one I have been interested in since launching Gleevec in GIST (way back when) when I was fortunate to get to know many of the leading sarcoma experts.

Dr George Demetri

George D. Demetri, MD. Photo Credit: DFCI

One of these is Dr George Demetri, who is Director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

At the recent European Cancer Congress in Vienna, I had the privilege to talk with Dr Demetri about some of the latest research in soft tissue sarcoma.

We spoke about cancer immunotherapy, new small molecules and monoclonal antibodies, and the potential of targeting the epigenetic machinery.

A lot of what Dr Demetri is doing is currently “under the radar” and while he didn’t give any secrets away, he did give some sense of where some breakthroughs may occur in the not too distant future.  He also talked about how sarcomas with a specific target can be used for proof of concept clinical trials of novel agents.

Given the pressure that many companies are under to speed up their path to market strategies, accelerated approval in a rare tumour subset is one approach that can be considered.

It’s an exciting time in the field with the potential for several agents in development to move the needle and make a difference. I hope you enjoy this post, it was a real pleasure to talk with Dr Demetri again.

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The value of BRAF targeted cancer therapies in lung and colorectal cancer

It’s time for the August mailbag where we answer questions about cancer research and R&D from subscribers.

After the recent queries about immuno-oncology, it’s time to focus a little on targeted therapies again. Neither chemotherapies nor targeted therapies are going to go away – they are still the bedrock of many treatment approaches in the clinic today. Sadly though, much of the new data for the latter trials were easily swamped by the sheer tsunami of immunotherapy data in Philadelphia (AACR) and Chicago (ASCO).

One important area that we have been discussing on both blogs for some time is the value of well designed basket trials.  It’s time to revisit this concept in the light of new data relating to the BRAF V600 mutation outside of metastatic melanoma.

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BMS and Exelixis announce new renal cell cancer data

New developments in renal cell carcinoma

Continuing our focus on genitourinary (GU) cancers this week, today we turn our focus from prostate cancer to renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

There were two important announcments on Monday this week relating to renal carcinoma.

Firstly, Exelixis announced positive top line data from a phase 3 pivotal trial of cabozantinib versus everolimus in relapsed metastatic renal cell carcinoma (METEOR).  The study met the primary endpoint (i.e. significantly improved progression free survival) and the company revealed the following data:

  • Cabozantinib reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 42%; Hazard Ratio = 0.58, (p < 0.0001) compared to everolimus
  • Interim Analysis of OS demonstrated a trend in favour of cabozantinib; Hazard Ratio = 0.67, (p = 0.005) compared to everolimus
  • Exelixis to complete US and EU regulatory filings in early 2016

Secondly, a press release from BMS highlighted the phase 3 CHECKMATE–025 trial comparing nivolumab to everolimus, also in relapsed metastatic RCC, where the independent Data Monitoring Committee recommended early stoppage on the basis of the primary endpoint (OS) being met. The company likely be seeking discussions with Health Authorities with a view to filing the data with the FDA and EMA.

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What happens when you combine checkpoint blockade with an immune stimulant in cancer?

We know from preclinical research that immunosuppressive tumour microenvironments can restrain anti-tumour immunity, thereby making subsequent therapeutic interventions less effective than expected. CD40 activation has been shown to reverse immune suppression and drive antitumor T cell responses, which in turn could lead to potentially better outcomes.

What happens when patients with advanced melanoma are given a checkpoint inhibitor plus an immune agonist such as anti-CD40?

Can we help the non-responding patients to checkpoint blockade improve their outcomes and shift the long tail in survival curves up using this approach?

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Are targeted therapies now a thing of the past in the immunotherapy era?

With the sheer breadth and depth of immuno-oncology data being presented at even the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), several readers were prompted to write in and ask:

“Is this the end of the road for TKI therapies? Should we even bother to continue working on these agents?”

Good question.

There was actually quite a bit of interesting data on regular novel targeted therapy to discuss, although I do concede that much of the mass media news focusing on the immuno-oncology tsunami in Philadelphia effectively drowned out targeted therapies and the results coming out in that space.

Reading Market Philly Chocolate TowerTo maintain the balance between novel targeted agents and immunotherapy, here’s a review of some of the interesting new developments that I came across at AACR, from both the poster halls, as well as some of the thought leaders in this space.

When you stack up the emerging evidence in several tumour subsets, there are quite a few tasty morsels that are worthy of further discussion!

I’d like to take this opportunity to extend a warm welcome to all the new subscribers who took advantage of the AACR Special Offer to continue their education and learning about the exciting new developments in cancer research.  Thank you for joining our conference coverage service, we really appreciate it.

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Where are checkpoint inhibitors going next?

One of the obvious learnings from the American Association of Clinical Research (AACR) meeting earlier this week was that we are coming to the end of the low hanging fruit opportunities for checkpoint inhibitors as monotherapies.

Speaking with numerous company people in this space, there was wide consensus on that point. As one clinical lead put it succinctly, “From here on out, it’s going to get way more complicated – had a low grade headache develop after the very first science session I attended – and it’s still there after two days!”

How many of us know that feeling all too well?  AACR always has the heaviest science load of any cancer conference we attend each year. Sure there’s some nice clinical data, but that is like nibbling on the light appetizers before the 20 course banquet. You need much stamina and fortitude to survive the brain fog at AACR. Then there’s the glee at snagging some key poster handouts at the meeting, only to be rapidly diminished when you try to read the 4pt print post hoc and realise your eyes cannot focus easily.

Looking at the long list of topics I want to cover in the in-depth post meeting analysis for a ‘lighter’ post, especially given that it’s Friday after a very long week, that sinking feeling hit home hard – there are no lightweight topics at AACR.

The other day, we posted about the promising data in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), following on from the Genentech and Merck presentations at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). These data surprised many folks, mostly because they didn’t consider breast cancer to be an immunogenic tumour – nor is lung cancer in the broader scheme of things for that matter – yet we are seeing some nice durable responses in both tumour types with checkpoint inhibitors.

In other words, our definition and perceptions must change as we redefine how we identify and think of possible ‘responsive’ cancers to these agents.

So where are likely heading next?

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Targeting CD40 in Cancer Immunotherapy

At the recent 2014 annual meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), it was surprising to see how many people stayed till the bitter end of the conference to attend the Hot Topic Symposium on Accelerating Tumor Immunity with Agonist Antibodies.

Readers are well aware of the potential of cancer immunotherapies that block immune checkpoint receptors. After all, the FDA has already approved antibodies that block CTLA–4 (ipiliimumab) and PD–1 (pembrolizumab) in metastatic melanoma, with nivolumab (Opdivo) currently being reviewed for advanced melanoma and lung cancers.

These antagonists, and others in development targeting the PD-L1 signalling pathway, such as MEDI4736 and MPDL3280A, act to reduce the engagement of inhibitory receptors on the T-cell. This results in a releasing of a brake on the T cell response, enabling killer T cells to attack the tumour(s).

CD40 in cancer Source: Costello et al., 1999

However, in order to stimulate an immune response, particularly in tumors with few natural T cells, it is likely that agonist antibodies will be required that act on stimulatory signalling receptors on T cells and antigen presenting cells (APC’s).

In a previous post from SITC, we discussed the potential of agonists targeting OX40, and the rational for combining an anti-OX40 antibody with an anti-PDL1. This is one of the hottest targets that thought leaders are excited about from our discussions.

It isn’t the only one of interest though. Another potential stimulatory target that might be suitable for combination with anti-PD–1/PD-L1 is an antibody against CD40 (not to be confused with OX40). The pathway (shown right) is quite complex.

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