AACR 2012 meeting: a window into potential new cancer drugs

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Daedalus

Bill Sellers gives an AACR plenary talk

The annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held in Chicago earlier this month, is one of the most important meetings of the year for cancer scientists, pharma/biotech drug development and new products professionals.

Bill Sellers, in the AACR plenary session, described how Novartis are using the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) in conjunction with the Broad Institute to identify promising new compounds.

As Sally Church, PhD noted on Pharma Strategy Blog in her post on the highlights of AACR 2012:

“What made the meeting exciting for me was the sheer number of new compounds emerging from late preclinical to early phase 1.”

Two of the many promising new drugs in early stages of development were highlighted on Biotech Strategy Blog:

AZD3514 (AstraZeneca), a selective androgen receptor down regulator (SARD) in phase 1 clinical trials for castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

ABT-199 (Abbott), a new Bcl-2 inhibitor (that improves on navitoclax), in phase 1 drug development for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

David Woessner (@pinfoto)

There were many noteworthy posters presented at AACR particularly from young researchers

e.g. “Overcoming resistance to EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy in non-small cell lung cancer” was a poster that suggested the prospect of future drug development targets.

Laura Strong, PhD (@scientre)

During the high quality poster and oral sessions, we met numerous people including CEOs of baby biotechs, young researchers and clinicians with an interest in translational research, including Laura Strong, Ph.D President & COO of Quintessence Biosciences (@scientre), David Woessner who was presenting his PhD research (@pinfoto) and Philippe Aftimos, MD from Belgium (@aftimosp), all of whom were actively sharing their observations during numerous sessions via Twitter during the conference.

The annual meeting is not just about basic science though, but also drug development strategy and emerging research trends, such as the automation of preclinical drug discovery, as well as the collaboration between academia and Pharma/Biotech in combination clinical trials using two novel compounds from different companies. This last trend, I am pleased to say, has already begun and will hopefully continue apace in the future.

If you were not able to attend AACR, then Sally Church aggregated all the #AACR tweets from the meeting on Pharma Strategy Blog. AACR also have webcasts of some of the sessions available, including some with free access.

We’re already looking forward to AACR 2013 in Washington, DC and the timing of the meeting means it should take place when the renowned Cherry Blossom are in full bloom. Hopefully, this will provide a great opportunity for another Pharma Strategy Blog video!

Pharma Conference Coverage Strategy

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Daedalus

We live in a world of data that threatens to overwhelm our work and personal lives. Part of the reason for this is the price of data storage continues to fall dramatically.

Today, an external hard drive offers a 1TB capacity; a few years ago the same product offered 100GB. A 10x increase in storage capacity for the same money in the space of a few years.

Data is now available from online posters, abstracts, webcasts and presentations. We also have Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and other social media competing for our time.

ASCO 2011: “the never ending walk”

What this means is that if you plan to attend a major medical or scientific meeting such as the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which offers a lot of data, you need to have a conference coverage strategy.

Here are a few tips we suggest you consider:

Don’t go for a “Data Dump”

Too often we see a “fear of missing out” (FOMO) mentality drive a “we must capture everything” policy. All this results in is a mass of data that somebody has to analyze after the meeting. Too often a 300+ page data dump report (when it finally is produced) ends up sitting on the metaphorical shelf.

Focus on Key Questions

Prior to a major medical or scientific meeting it’s important to develop a list of the key questions that a brand, commercial or new products team need answered. The questions could be on competitor activity, developments in a pathway or impact of clinical data on the standard of care. Data collection can then be focusoned on answering those key questions.

Insights cost more

Recently, staff at a top 20 pharma company told us they were paying $X for a conference “data dump” but only had 10% of $X available for strategic insights. In Twitter speak, they had #LostThePlot as it should be the other way round since insights are more valuable than raw data.

As management consultants, we might produce a Powerpoint slide with a table or chart based on data from 20 posters. In order to select those 20 key posters, we could have reviewed perhaps 200 posters originally. Which would you rather have, one slide with insights and analysis or 200 Powerpoint slides with data? Our philosophy is “less is more.”

Insights cost more because it takes in-depth therapeutic area knowledge and expertise to condense data into a meaningful story and make strategic recommendations.

What is your conference coverage strategy for this year? Please contact us if you would like to learn more about our capabilities.

Future of Alzheimer’s disease is in biomarkers and preclinical diagnosis

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Daedalus

Pieter Droppert in a previous position worked as a Global Project Director for a phase II Alzheimer’s clinical trial program in emerging markets. He maintains an interest in this area and the new products in drug development.

In a new post on Biotech Strategy Blog, Pieter writes about research published in the journal Neurology that showed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could detect pre-symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Brad Dickerson and colleagues from Mass General and Rush University in Chicago looked at two groups of subjects who were cognitively normal, and then over time investigated the brain differences seen in those patients who developed AD.

Their conclusion is that changes in cortical thickness are a biomarker for AD, in other words structural brain changes can be seen before they develop clinical symptoms.

This research is still very early and has a number of limitations, including the low sample size and the need for computer power to do the analysis.

That said, the promise of all the biomarkers under development to diagnose early stage AD, whether they be amyloid imaging of plaque through PET scans or via MRI, is they offer the hope of being able to detect those patients at risk before the brain becomes irreparable.

By the time clinical symptoms of dementia or mild cognitive impairment manifests itself, then it’s likely the damage has already been done, and the brain has been snagged or disrupted by the disease in a way that is hard to reverse.

Early detection of those individuals at risk allows the prospect of using neuroprotective drugs to delay the onset of clinical symptoms.

Recognition of the importance of preclinical diagnosis i.e. before symptoms develop was also shown by the announcement yesterday by the National Institute on Aging, a branch of the NIH – National Institutes on Health of new diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer’s patients.

These guidelines divide patients into three diagnostic groups: preclinical, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. The preclinical group is completely new and a recognition that structural and molecular changes occur in the brain before clinical symptoms manifest themselves.

There is considerable research into AD biomarkers to suggest that in the next 5 years we will be able to detect those people at risk, but the challenge remains in developing new drugs that slow down or reverse the onset of the neuronal tangling that occurs.

AD is a disease that will touch many families as the population in many countries becomes older. If you are interested in this area, you can read more on Biotech Strategy Blog.