An ex­plo­sion of PD-1/L1 check­point stud­ies is crowd­ing the in­dus­try pipeline — and that’s a prob­lem

WASH­ING­TON, DC — The Can­cer Re­search In­sti­tute has been do­ing the math on the PD-1/L1 check­point pipeline, and you might not be­lieve what we’re see­ing now in terms of clin­i­cal re­search pro­grams.


Samir Khleif

In a dis­cus­sion here at the So­ci­ety for Im­munother­a­py of Can­cer meet­ing, Samir Khleif, an im­muno-on­col­o­gist and SITC board mem­ber, laid out the num­bers from the CRI.

With 5 check­points on the mar­ket, there are now 164 dif­fer­ent check­point ther­a­pies be­ing stud­ied from the pre­clin­i­cal through late-stage phase. There are three more right now in Phase III — REGN-2810 from Sanofi/Re­gen­eron, PDR001 from No­var­tis and INC­SHR-1210 from In­cyte/Jiang­su Hen­grui — and 9 in Phase II.

CRI counts 1,502 clin­i­cal tri­als un­der­way in­volv­ing a PD-1/L1, with 1,105 com­bo stud­ies in the pipeline. Quite a few of those tri­als might well pay off, Khleif not­ed, but here’s the prob­lem:

“We are not on the right path,” Khleif tells me. “Cur­rent­ly there are a lot of com­bi­na­tion clin­i­cal tri­als and some of those tri­als are not based on sci­ence.”

Log­ic may lead you to be­lieve that PD-1/L1 com­bined with just about any­thing else will work bet­ter, he says. But that isn’t al­ways so. You might think that a check­point and OX40 would work to­geth­er, he used by way of ex­am­ple, by elim­i­nat­ing the sup­pres­sive en­vi­ron­ment in the tu­mor. But the com­bi­na­tion ac­tu­al­ly in­hibits im­mune re­sponse, he says, which has been shown in an­i­mal stud­ies.

The gold rush on I/O, though, is caus­ing bio­phar­mas and re­searchers to rush in­to tri­als where they haven’t done the sci­ence to check and see if they have a rea­son­able chance of suc­cess.

In the mean­time, he adds, it’s be­come hard­er and hard­er to find can­cer pa­tients for these stud­ies. “We’re go­ing to have prob­lems re­cruit­ing pa­tients any way,” Khleif says, mak­ing it all that more im­por­tant to make sure that pro­grams aren’t rushed in­to the clin­ic.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Lat­est on ul­tra-rare dis­ease ap­proval; Pos­i­tive, if mixed, signs for Bio­gen's ALS drug; Clay Sie­gall finds a new job; and more

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FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Novo Nordisk is testing higher levels of its oral version of its GLP-1, semaglutide, and its type 2 diabetes trial results released today show reductions in blood sugar as well as weight loss.

In the Phase IIIb trial, Novo compared its oral semaglutide in 25 mg and 50 mg doses with the 14 mg version that’s currently the maximum approved dose. The trial looked at how the doses compared when added to a stable dose of one to three oral antidiabetic medicines in people with type 2 diabetes who were in need of an intensified treatment.

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Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

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FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

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Sijmen de Vries, Pharming CEO

FDA ap­proves Pharm­ing drug for ul­tra-rare im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

Ly­me vac­cine test com­ple­tion is pushed back by a year as Pfiz­er, Val­ne­va say they'll ad­just tri­al

Valneva and Pfizer have adjusted the end date for the Phase III study of their investigational Lyme disease vaccine, pushing it back by a year after issues at a contract researcher led to thousands of US patients being dropped from the test.

In a March 20 update to clinicaltrials.gov, Valneva and Pfizer moved the primary completion date on the trial, called VALOR, from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025.

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Zhi Hong, Brii Biosciences CEO

Brii Bio­sciences stops man­u­fac­tur­ing Covid-19 an­ti­body com­bo, plans to with­draw EUA re­quest

Brii Biosciences said it will stop manufacturing its Covid-19 antibody combination, sold in China, and is working to withdraw its emergency use authorization request in the US, which it started in October 2021.

The Beijing and North Carolina biotech commercially launched the treatment in China last July but is now axing the work and reverting resources to other “high-priority programs,” per a Friday update. The focus now is namely hepatitis B viral infection, postpartum depression and major depressive disorders.

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