What’s hot at ASCO 2012?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Daedalus

ASCO 2012 Meeting Chicago 225x300 Whats hot at ASCO 2012? The 2012 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) takes place in Chicago in just over two weeks time from June 1 – 5. The ASCO abstracts will be publicly available tomorrow (May 16) at 6pm EDT.

We’re looking forward to being at ASCO, and picking up the latest data for new products and evaluating the impact this may have on our understanding of key pathways and drug development targets.

If you want to know what Sally Church, PhD predicts will be highlights of the ASCO 2012 meeting (in the absence of any abstract information) then watch her informative video and check out her ASCO preview post on Pharma Strategy Blog.

If you plan to be at ASCO 2012 and would like to meet up and discuss our capabilities, please contact us.

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!

Do you know who your thought leaders are and what they think about your product?

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Daedalus

One of the emerging trends we saw at the recent European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Paris was an increase in the number of plenary and session presentations by physicians from Eastern European countries.

This trend is set to continue, and we expect to see more physicians from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) group of countries and other emerging markets presenting at global science and medical meetings in the future.

Poland is a good example of a country that should be on the radar of any global pharmaceutical company. It is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, and was the only European country to avoid a recession in 2008-2009.

It was interesting to note that Tomasz Borkowski (Department of Urology at the Medical University of Warsaw) who gave a major session presentation at EAU on “Cancer induced bone disease – prevention and treatment’ listed only one company on his disclosures.

Clearly, some companies are ahead of others in identifying and building relationships with thought or key opinion leaders (KOLs) as they are commonly known.

One of the services we offer clients is market research with thought leaders at the global, national and regional level. Like all market research, this is anonymous – you don’t know the name or the institution and the physician doesn’t know who the sponsor is. This allows the doctor to speak more freely. This type of market research can provide valuable insights into what they think about a product or market opportunity with less bias.

Do you know who your thought leaders are and what think about your product? If not, please contact us and we would be delighted to help you meet your brand business goals.

Abiraterone price may be discounted 40% for UK NICE approval

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Daedalus

At the recent European Association of Urology (EAU) Annual Congress in Paris, one of the rumours was that the price of abiraterone (Zytiga) has been discounted 40% to the UK National Health Service (NHS) in order to obtain reimbursement approval from the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence (NICE).

As Sally notes in her video report from EAU 2012, if true, this has important commercial implications in the advanced prostate cancer market and potential new entrants such as MDV3100.

When looking at the prostate cancer competitive landscape and a market entry strategy, one of the issues to consider is reimbursement.

Regulatory approval to market a drug in Europe does not automatically mean it will be reimbursed or paid for by healthcare providers. Abiraterone is a good example of this.

Another driver of price and reimbursement will be the cumulative cost of treatment for advanced prostate cancer. This is set to increase dramatically as new products such as MDV3100 and Alpharadin come to market, and their use moves from post-chemotherapy to the pre-chemotherapy setting.

You can gain more insights on some of the future challenges by watching Sally’s excellent conference coverage video from EAU 2012:

There is also more information from EAU 2012 on Biotech Strategy Blog e.g. on Bayer’s Expanded Access Program for Alpharadin and an update on Millennium’s orteronel (TAK-700), a competitor to abiraterone.

Sally’s next conference video will be from the forthcoming American Assocation for Cancer Research (AACR) 2012 annual meeting that takes in place Chicago from March 31 – April 4. We hope to see you there.

Are you adapting to the changing prostate cancer market?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Daedalus

The prostate cancer market continues to evolve at a fast pace. Companies with products on the market or in development will need to adapt their marketing strategy to the changing prostate cancer market dynamics. Some of the recent news includes:

MDV3100 shows 4.8 improvement in median overall survival

Sally Church, PhD on Pharma Strategy Blog interviewed David Hung, MD CEO of Medivation and discussed the MDV3100 clinical trial data presented at ASCO GU.

Sally has been following the development of MDV3100 for a while, and previously interviewed Dr Charles Sawyers one of the co-developers.

MDV3100 showed an improvement in median overall survival of 4.8 months in advanced prostate cancer, and offers a number of significant advantages over abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) due to its different mechanism of action on the androgen receptor.

One of the advantages is it’s ability to target splice variants:

You can read more about MDV3100 on Pharma Strategy Blog.

Is ARN-509 more effective than MDV3100?

Another interesting compound in prostate cancer drug development is Aragon’s ARN-509. Recent research published in the AACR journal, “Cancer Research” suggests that ARN-509 may be a more potent androgen-receptor antagonist than MDV3100.

Whether ARN-509 will make it to market remains in question given that Medivation claim the compound was part of the intellectual property it acquired from UCLA along with what became MDV3100.

You can read more about the potential of Aragon’s ARN-509 in prostate cancer on Pharma Strategy Blog.

Radium-223 (Alpharadin) significantly prolongs time to first Skeletal Related Event

Pieter Droppert has written on Biotech Strategy Blog about the radium-223 (Alpharadin) clinical trial data presented by Dr Oliver Sartor at ASCO GU.

Alpharadin is a bone targeted radiopharmaceutical that has shown not only a significant delay in the time to first skeletal related event (SRE) but an increase in overall survival.

Dr Sartor kindly offered some clinical perspective on the data that you can read on Biotech Strategy Blog.

In case you missed it, the video interview with Dr Chris Parker at ECCO/ESMO 2011 in Stockholm offers further information on radium-223 and the ALSYMPCA trial results:

Amgen fails to convince ODAC that Xgeva should have a prostate bone mets indication

If you were following the prostate cancer news this past week, then the ODAC 12:1 vote against granting an indication for denosumab (Xgeva) for the prevention of prostate cancer bone metastases was in the news

Pieter Droppert collated the Xgeva ODAC meeting tweets on Storify if you are interested in what was live tweeted during the meeting.

Once Alpharadin is approved will radiation oncologists now get more involved in the treatment of prostate cancer and how will this impact the market dynamics? Will urologists favor MDV3100 that does not require administration of prednisone at the expense of Zytiga?

Companies will need to adapt their marketing strategy as new prostate cancer new products come to market in 2012.

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.

Insights from AACR Molecular Targets Meeting

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Daedalus

San Francisco Transamerica Pyramid © Pieter Droppert 225x300 Insights from AACR Molecular Targets Meeting There was a lot of interesting science at the recent AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics international conference in San Francisco.

In particular, the poster sessions offered the opportunity to discuss pre-clinical and early drug development work, and share insights into pathways and mechanisms of action. If you are in new product development, it’s a key meeting to attend.

What was the news at AACR molecular targets?

Sally Church on Pharma Strategy Blog aggregated the live tweets from the joint AACR-NCI-EORTC meeting, although the absence of wifi in the plenary sessions meant that there were fewer tweets than might have been expected.

Sally has written about some of the data presented on breast cancer at the meeting. In her insightful post she reviews the Syndax data for entinostat in second-line ER/PR+ breast cancer, and also asks whether ALK is a new target in inflammatory breast cancer (IBC)?

From what was heard at the meeting, there will be a lot of new breast cancer data at the forthcoming San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) that Sally will also be attending.

More insights from AACR molecular targets will be available on Pharma Strategy Blog in the next few days.

Meanwhile on Biotech Strategy Blog, Pieter Droppert has written about some of the sessions he attended in San Francisco on:

Next year’s 2012 molecular targets meeting will be in Dublin, good news for all those who like Guinness!

AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets Meeting San Francisco

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Daedalus

The favorite scientific meeting of Sally Church, PhD is the American Association for Cancer Research AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics international conference that alternates each year between Europe and the United States.

This year it is being held in San Francisco from November 12-16, 2011, and already AACR has announced that a lot of new data will be presented on early stage new products in development.

On Pharma Strategy Blog, Sally notes the “luminaries” in personalized medicine that she is looking forward to hearing from in San Francisco.

Pieter Droppert on Biotech Strategy Blog also mentions the Molecular Targets conference and his interest in the plenary session chaired by Frank McCormick on “rational cancer drug development for targeted drugs.”

The potential for academia to facilitate combination trials with drugs from different companies was highlighted in Sally Church’s recent video interview with Gordon B Mills, MD PhD from UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.

If you have plans to be in San Francisco for the Molecular Targets conference do let us know. In addition to hearing about great science – networking and meeting people is one of the big reasons to attend.

Vismodegib best abstract at ECCO 2011 Stockholm Cancer Congress

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Daedalus

Next week sees the start of the 2011 Stockholm Cancer Congress – a joint multidisciplinary meeting of ECCO, ESMO and ESTRO.

What’s likely to be hot news from Stockholm? On Biotech Strategy Blog, Pieter Droppert has highlighted the phase III data to be presented at ECCO 2011 on Alpharadin (radium-223 chloride) in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

The prostate cancer market is set to become interesting from a commercial and marketing strategy perspective, with several new products in late phase development for CRPC including MDV3100, TAK-700, lenalidomide, Alpharadin, custirsen, Prostvac to name but a few. The Alpharadin data from the ALSYMPCA trial will be presented as a late breaking abstract in the presidential session on Saturday September 24^th. Based on the interim data previously released, positive data is expected.

The best abstract at ECCO 2011, however, is the data on hedgehog pathway (Hh) inhibitor, vismodegib in advanced basal cell carcinoma (BCC). This will also be presented in the presidential session on Saturday 24^th.

Sally Church on Pharma Strategy Blog has written extensively about hedgehog inhibitors and earlier this week wrote about the news that Roche had filed for FDA approval of vismodegib. Given the accolade of “best abstract” and the data presented in the plenary session at the AACR annual meeting earlier this year, we can expect good news for patients who at present have no treatment options.

As Sally notes, vismodegib (GDC-0449) if approved by the FDA, “will offer the first proof of concept for the role of Hedgehog and Smoothend Inhibition in the treatment of cancer.”

Memories of 9/11

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Daedalus

Sally Church Kite Flying Liberty Park WTC in Background 225x300 Memories of 9/11 Those of us who lived around New York City ten years ago will never forget the sight of the World Trade Center towers coming down. It is forever indelibly etched in our minds.

Many of us had dined at “Windows on the World” or been to the Observation Deck and watched light aircraft flying along the Hudson, below us. Many knew people who did not make it out.

It is a trauma that we will never forget, and Sept 11 is a day of remembrance. However, life is a journey and we must look forwards not back.

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