Conferences

J&J acquired Taris in 2019 to gain access to TAR-200 and its drug delivery platform. Now, early clinical data suggest the product could delay or remove the need for cystectomy in several bladder cancer settings and the US healthcare giant is eyeing multi-blockbuster sales.    

The Barcelona meeting saw early data from two candidates from Incyte and Pfizer which suggest some progress for a new drug mechanism that has so far underwhelmed.    

The company’s investment in oncology is starting to pay off, with its PD-L1/VEGF inhibitor BNT324 generating particular interest at ESMO.

The German group's goal of expanding Nubeqa into wider prostate cancer patient populations has probably been reached with the results from the Phase III ARANOTE study, while a combination of its older product Xofigo and Pfizer and Astellas’ Xtandi is set to become standard of care for another subset.

New Phase II data for the bispecific antibody show promise in colorectal cancer as the company seeks to spread the bispecific antibody’s wings. Phase III trials are on the horizon, where it will need to go up against standard of care.    

Pfizer will talk to regulators about pivotal study designs in cachexia following promising ponsegromab Phase II data, with results from a separate study in heart failure also coming soon.

The Copenhagen-headquartered group is taking its antibody-drug conjugate rinatabart sesutecan into Phase III and chief medical officer Tahi Ahmadi tells Scrip that it has the potential to treat far more women than the only currently marketed FRα-targeting ADC, AbbVie's Elahere.

Phase II data at the ESMO meeting showed promising efficacy for the drug beyond NSCLC, particularly in certain indications of colorectal and head-and-neck cancers.

AstraZeneca’s NIAGARA trial of perioperative Imfinzi in bladder cancer was positively received at the ESMO meeting but its design did not distinguish the contributions of each treatment portion to the overall effect – something that the US FDA is likely to have a view on.    

Two similarly named companies, Nuvation and Nuvalent, are racing to see who can claim best-in-class status in next-generation lung cancer therapies.

New data suggest that RP1 could become the therapy of choice in melanoma patients who do not respond to checkpoint inhibitors.    

Merck & Co has presented lots of data on its huge-earning checkpoint inhibitor at the Barcelona congress, the highlights being impressive first-time overall survival results for Keytruda in cervical cancer and early-stage triple-negative breast cancer.

Persistence has paid off for Incyte’s Zynyz in anal cancer with a Phase III win that should make up for a previous disappointment at the FDA and give a boost to the firm’s pipeline prospects for a post-Jakafi era.    

While oncology heavyweights Roche and Merck & Co have failed to make much headway with their in-house TIGIT offerings, hopes are high for iTeos's belrestotug in combination with GSK's checkpoint inhibitor, Jemperli, which has demonstrated promising response rates for non-small cell lung cancer in the Phase II GALAXIES Lung-201 study.

Attendees at this year's European Society for Medical Oncology meeting in Barcelona can look forward to a range of interesting datasets, from Phase III trials of established products in new settings to preliminary studies of novel products coming through the pipeline.  

Sutro Biopharma CEO Bill Newell spoke with Scrip about the company’s novel platform, its goal of improving folate receptor alpha-driven ovarian cancer and its business development strategy.

Scrip spoke with Amgen’s senior VP of US business operations about the impact of drug pricing and reimbursement pressures coming from government policy changes and commercial payers.

Dollars spent on biopharma M&A so far in 2024 may not be as high as in 2023, but dealmakers say deal volume is robust with many factors influencing the overall value of transactions this year.

Iovance’s Amtagvi won FDA accelerated approval in February, and Adaptimmune’s afami-cel may not be far behind, but cell therapies for solid tumors come with some extra challenges.

The discussant at ASCO’s NSCLC session said the field would need to “manage expectations” as the drugs do not appear to beat chemotherapy in all-comers.