Biotech Strategy Blog

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

Posts tagged ‘voruciclib’

Sunset over Boston Commons

Cancer remains one of the most intractable diseases, with certain types and subtypes continuing to evade effective treatment. While great progress has been made with immunotherapies and molecularly targeted drugs, cancers driven by notorious oncogenes like KRAS, MYC, and p53 remain challenging to drug.

These key transcriptional and signalling proteins play vital roles in normal cell physiology, meaning inhibiting them often causes toxicity. However, the allure of tackling cancers addicted to these oncoproteins keeps researchers striving for more precise, selective ways to target them.

One emerging approach is to inhibit a key transcriptional kinase involved in regulating MYC and other cancer-promoting genes. Several inhibitors of this kinase have been tested clinically, but most were either insufficiently selective or too toxic.

A new compound profiled in the post below shows early signs of being a more optimised inhibitor. It displays high selectivity and a long half-life, enabling sustained target inhibition without excessive toxicity. Early data from a phase 1 trial in solid tumours has demonstrated clinical activity, including exceptional responses in MYC-driven sarcomas.

These promising results highlight the potential of this new wave of inhibitors to tackle MYC-dependent cancers, including aggressive lymphomas. Other companies are advancing selective inhibitors of this kinase into clinical trials for hematologic malignancies.

Overall, these precision inhibitors represent an exciting targeted strategy against transcriptional addictions in cancer. The initial clinical success offers hope for making meaningful advances against once intractable oncogenes…

To continue reading our latest highlights on oncology new product development including commentary and analysis BSB subscribers can log-in or you can click to access the content.

This content is restricted to subscribers

It’s time for a look at some important Gems from the Poster Halls.

In part 1 of this series, we take a look at some targets where companies have struggled in the past and look at them afresh with new or next generation agents coming down the pike. Where possible we also explain why these compounds might succeed where their earlier competitors did not.

Fond memories of the ASH poster hall in the translational sections before the evening rugby scrum!

What’s in store? In the latest review, some of these compounds are more selective or have improved potency, others take the form of a different modality or formulation, and so on.

Not all compounds are the same, after all, and sometimes choosing an alternative dosing strategy or combination partner can make all the difference between success and failure, as can different PK/PD properties.

A few tweaks here and there and the line between these two extremes is often finer than many outsiders realise.

The second review will follow early in the New Year after the Holidays and highlight completely different targets and agents of interest.

In the meantime, in the first installment here’s nine gems from the ASH poster halls to contemplate…

BSB subscribers can read up on our ongoing commentary and analysis from the ASH annual meeting – you can either log-in or click to access the back story behind the latest innovations.

This content is restricted to subscribers

A bright future ahead or early warning signs?

It’s time for another update on the KRAS and SHP2 niches… it seems this space is much faster moving than our previous quarterly rolling updates in the past on other areas such as T70M in EGFR mutant lung cancers, checkpoint blockade in NSCLC, or new developments in CAR-T or CLL/iNHL.

It’s a sign of the modern times.

There’s always new entrants, new science and new clinical data to learn more about so without much further ado, let’s roll…

To learn more about our ongoing reporting on the KRAS niche to get a heads up on key oncology commentary and insights, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

This content is restricted to subscribers

Who, and importantly, what is in the spotlight at AACR21?

In our third Preview of the AACR21 annual meeting series, it’s time to highlight some early or promising new categories, some of which involve some elegant or cool science concepts.

Here we selected our Top 8 emerging areas of innovative research in targeted therapies.  The immunotherapy developments will be covered separately.

So what ideas should you be looking over your shoulders at and which ones might make you shudder in horror?

After all, oncology R&D is very much a game of Yin and Yang – for every great new idea that comes along there’s always something in the category which makes you go, “Huh?!”

Hurry along and see what’s in the spotlight this year…

To learn more about the hot topics at AACR21 and get a heads up on our oncology commentary and insights, subscribers can log-in or you can click to gain access to BSB Premium Content.

This content is restricted to subscribers

This week certainly turned out to be a defining tale of two drugs with a chequered history…

Lion DancersFirst off, the FDA approved AbbVie/Genentech’s venetoclax, now known as Venclexta, in a subset of CLL patients with 17p deletions. These patients have a historically poor prognosis and the approval goes some way to addressing the high unmet medical need.

Secondly, another biotech company, Clovis Oncology, got slammed by ODAC with a 12-1 vote to wait for phase 3 data from the TIGER-3 trial for rociletinib to better determine the efficacy:safety benefit profile.

For a long while it seemed that AbbVie had nothing but toil and trouble over the tumour lysis syndrome (TLS) issues giving them some significant challenges to overcome, while Clovis were one of the new darlings of Wall Street.

In the final dash to the market, the tables were turned almost at the 11th hour and fortunes stunningly reversed.  Yet a mere eighteen months ago, few industry watchers would have predicted the difference in outcomes.

In our latest AACR Preview series, we take a look at Bcl2 inhibition and where some of the emerging opportunities might lie based on new preclinical research that is being presented here in New Orleans this weekend.  It makes for interesting reading.

While one tiger is licking its wounds, another is smacking it chops at what the future might hold for new combination approaches; how the tails have literally turned.

To learn more, subscribers can log-in to read our latest article…

This content is restricted to subscribers

error: Content is protected !!