New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021, including: Affimed, Atyr, Chemocentryx, Greenwich, Humanigen, Imcheck, In8bio, Iovance, Mina, Nimbus, Onxeo, Sana, Sanofi, Surface Oncology, Transgene, Turning Point.
In science there are often too many choices to make. Nammi Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO, David Stover, told BioWorld that he makes narrowing therapeutic options a core company principle. The redundancy of immune regulatory pathways in cancer treatments is a case in point.
After climbing nearly 37% since the start of the week, shares of Greenwich Lifesciences Inc. (NASDAQ:GLSI) gained another 6% on April 9 as it disclosed new data bolstering the case for its cancer immunotherapy candidate, GP2. The data, to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting on Saturday, showed that when HER2-positive breast cancer patients had GP2 added to standard-of-care Herceptin (trastuzumab, Roche Holding AG) following breast cancer surgery, no recurrences of their cancer were observed, even after a median follow-up of five years.
Companion diagnostics-focused Celcuity Inc. CEO Brian Sullivan said the deal with Pfizer Inc. for rights to pan-PI3K/mTOR inhibitor gedatolisib was “an organically developed opportunity, because of the research we had done on gedatolisib” in the course of investigating PI3K inhibitors. “We hadn’t shifted our strategy and said, ‘Oh, let’s start in-licensing drugs.’”
Multiple sessions at the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Annual Meeting II covered how COVID-19 is affecting cancer patients, from how clinical trials needed to be modified during the pandemic to how real-world evidence can play a role now and in the future.
At a session of the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Annual Meeting II, multiple FDA regulators gave presentations on various topics to help drug companies understand the ever-evolving oncology regulation.
Targeted therapy offers an opportunity for personalized medicine that's specific for a patient's tumor, but the hyper-focused treatment creates possibilities for cells to mutate and become resistant to the therapy.
Almost all solid tumors are treated with multiple drugs because the combinations have better efficacy than single-agent treatments. But finding those combinations can be difficult in an ever-growing sea of pair-wise combinations.
Bolstered by the success of CTLA4 and PD-(L)1 antibodies, companies are exploring new targets to encourage the immune system to attack tumors. "While these agents have demonstrated efficacy in a proportion of cancer patients, there clearly is room for improvement to lift the tail of the curve," Michele Teng, associate professor at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, told the audience at the clinical trials plenary session of the American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Annual Meeting II, where researchers presented data from a pair of immunotherapies looking to build on the success targeting PD-(L)1.
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