AACR: BMS, clinging to Opdivo's lung cancer share, highlights long-term data

Opdivo | April 03, 2019

After a hard blow to its hopes in previously untreated lung cancer, Bristol-Myers Squibb is clinging to its share of the second-line market. And it’s hoping new long-term data can help it hang on. Tuesday at the American Association for Cancer Research, the New Jersey drugmaker shared results from a pooled analysis of two phase 3 studies of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who hadn’t received previous treatment. And they showed that at the four-year mark, 14% of all Opdivo-treated patients were still alive, compared with just 5% of those who had received chemo instead. What’s more, 58% of those who had responded to Opdivo at the six-month mark, either partially or completely, were still alive four years later, versus just 12% of chemo patients.

Spotlight

Welcome to Pharmaprojects’ 2023 review of trends in pharmaceutical R&D. For over 30 years now, I’ve been taking an annual look at the evolution of pharma R&D, and in this article, I’llexamine the state of play at the start of 2023.

Spotlight

Welcome to Pharmaprojects’ 2023 review of trends in pharmaceutical R&D. For over 30 years now, I’ve been taking an annual look at the evolution of pharma R&D, and in this article, I’llexamine the state of play at the start of 2023.

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VIEWS AND ANALYSIS, PHARMACY MARKET

Telix to Supply Bayer with Illuccix® for Global Phase III Prostate Cancer Study

prnewswire | May 08, 2023

Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited announces that it has entered into an agreement with Bayer AG to supply Illuccix® kit for the preparation of gallium Ga 68 gozetotide injection)[1] for the Phase III ARASTEP study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05794906). This global study is investigating the efficacy of Bayer's androgen receptor inhibitor (ARi) darolutamide plus androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) versus ADT alone in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, in patients with high-risk biochemical recurrence who have no evidence of metastatic disease by conventional imaging and a positive PSMA-PET/CT[2] at baseline. The study will enrol up to 750 patients across various sites such as in Europe, Japan and the United States. The more sensitive PSMA imaging may identify prostate cancer lesions not detectable by conventional imaging such as computed tomography (CT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and bone scans. Telix Chief Medical Officer, Dr Colin Hayward stated, "We are pleased to supply Bayer and a number of clinical sites in this important study, reflective of Telix's unique commitment to delivering advanced prostate cancer imaging globally. The use of PSMA-PET/CT in this setting is illustrative of the potential for this imaging modality to move beyond diagnosis to a disease management tool." 022, the Group employed around 101,000 people and had sales of 50.7 billion euros. R&D expenses before special items amounted to 6.2 billion euros. About Telix Pharmaceuticals Limited Telix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialisation of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals. Telix is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia with international operations in the United States, Europe (Belgium and Switzerland), and Japan. Telix is developing a portfolio of clinical-stage products that aims to address significant unmet medical need in oncology and rare diseases. Telix is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS, PHARMACY MARKET

PathAI Announces PathExplore, an AI-powered Pathology Panel to Unlock Untapped Insights from the Tumor Microenvironment

Prnewswire | April 05, 2023

PathAI, a global leader in AI-powered pathology, announced the launch of PathExplore™, the world's first structured, standardized and scalable panel of human interpretable features (HIFs) offering unprecedented resolution of the tumor microenvironment (TME) from H&E whole-slide images. Powered by artificial intelligence, PathExplore1 spatially characterizes the TME with single-cell resolution, giving oncology drug developers the ability to unlock insights to inform the next phase of targeted oncology drug development. The last decade has seen significant strides in oncology therapeutic development, but challenges remain – many cancer patients do not respond to available treatment, and many aren't eligible for potentially transformative therapies because of a lack of actionable insight into their disease. Researchers are looking to the tumor microenvironment, one of the most promising areas of oncology research, for answers and insights that will impact patient outcomes. "PathExplore will enable researchers to identify novel spatial signatures predictive of outcomes," said Andy Beck, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer and co-founder of PathAI. "We're hopeful that by giving oncology drug developers access to this level of detail and data from routine H&E samples, this next generation of pathology will drive advances in cancer therapy development." Current technologies to measure and analyze the TME force researchers to make tradeoffs between resolution and scalability. Now with PathExplore, drug developers will have the ability to analyze the TME with deep resolution using a scalable platform that can be deployed on massive numbers of patient samples. PathExplore produces a panel of more than 600 quantitative HIFs: standardized and reproducible measures of counts, densities, areas and spatial relationships across cell types and tissue regions. PathExplore also generates overlay visualizations of cell types and tissue regions, delivered on PathAI's AISight™ Translational Research platform. PathExplore has been trained using over 6.5 million pathologist annotations on 66,000 slides. It is currently available for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, and renal cell carcinoma, with more indications planned to launch later this year, including ovarian and bladder cancers. The standardized, structured quantification of the TME across disease areas will enable reproducible, comparable, and scalable analysis across drug programs. "PathExplore will shift the research paradigm, bypassing long standing constraints we experience with some of the existing multi-omics modalities and allowing for more open exploration and discovery of relationships that were not identifiable by human analysis alone," said Mike Montalto, PhD, chief scientific officer at PathAI. "The degree of granularity, speed, efficiency and scale delivers unmatched insights that will change the way we view the tumor microenvironment." PathAI's HIFs have been used in over 15 scientific abstracts, presentations, and publications. To learn more about PathExplore, visit www.PathExplore.com or visit us at booth 315 at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) April 14th-19th in Orlando, FL. About PathAI PathAI is the only AI-focused technology company to provide comprehensive precision pathology solutions from wet lab services to algorithm deployment for clinical trials and diagnostic use. Rigorously trained and validated with data from more than 15 million annotations, its AI-powered models can be leveraged to optimize the analysis of patient samples to improve diagnostic efficiency and accuracy, as well as to better gauge therapeutic efficacy and accelerate drug development for complex diseases.

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PHARMA TECH

Leading Pharmaceutical Company in Brazil Chooses ValGenesis iRisk to Redefine and Automate Risk-Based Validation Processes

prnewswire | May 30, 2023

ValGenesis, Inc., the market leader in enterprise validation lifecycle management systems announced that a leading pharmaceutical company in Brazil selected ValGenesis iRisk to redefine and automate the company's risk-based validation processes. ValGenesis iRisk is the world's most advanced risk management platform, used by top pharmaceutical companies across the world. With corporate origins in Japan, the company draws upon a rich legacy of innovation and a pipeline of robust therapeutics that are enhancing the lives of millions of people across the globe. Working to keep pace with ever-changing business and regulatory landscapes, the company chose ValGenesis iRisk because it enhances business performance and business process excellence across end-to-end product and process lifecycles. On this compliant platform, experts can analyze, visualize, query, and compare risk over different products, processes, production sites, and more, sharing a continuous flow of risk communications between relevant stakeholders to get products to market more quickly and safely. "Brazil is the largest pharmaceutical market in Latin America, and we are happy that more companies are turning to ValGenesis for risk-based validation solutions that enforce a structured and consistent approach to risk, " says Steve Reynolds, Chief Revenue Officer at ValGenesis. "ValGenesis iRisk is able to deliver on these stringent requirements simply, efficiently, and very cost-effectively." ABOUT VALGENESIS ValGenesis, Inc. is the creator of an innovative software platform that serves as a foundation for managing compliance-based validation activities in life science companies. ValGenesis, Inc. is the provider of the first enterprise application that manages the corporate validation lifecycle process. This solution is fully compliant with U.S. FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and Annex 11 requirements. As the first fully paperless solution for electronic management of validation execution and approval, ValGenesis was selected by an industry peer review committee to receive the Parenteral Drug Association (PDA) New Innovative Technology Award in 2005.

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