King can­cer: The top 10 ther­a­peu­tic ar­eas in bio­phar­ma R&D

It’s not go­ing to come as a sur­prise to any­one who’s been pay­ing at­ten­tion to drug R&D trends that can­cer is the num­ber 1 dis­ease in terms of new drug de­vel­op­ment projects. But it is amaz­ing to see ex­act­ly how much on­col­o­gy dom­i­nates the in­dus­try as nev­er be­fore.

At a time the first CAR-T looks to be on the thresh­old of a pi­o­neer­ing ap­proval and the first wave of PD-(L)1 drugs are spurring hun­dreds of com­bi­na­tion stud­ies, can­cer ac­count­ed for 8,651 of the to­tal num­ber of pipeline projects count­ed by the Analy­sis Group, crunch­ing the num­bers in a new re­port com­mis­sioned by PhRMA. That’s more than a third of the 24,389 pre­clin­i­cal through Phase III pro­grams tracked by Eval­u­atePhar­ma, which pro­vid­ed the data­base for this re­view.

That’s al­so more than the next 5 dis­ease fields com­bined, start­ing with num­ber 2, neu­rol­o­gy — a field that in­cludes Parkin­son’s and Alzheimer’s. Psy­chi­a­try, once a ma­jor fo­cus for phar­ma R&D, didn’t even make the top 10, with 468 projects.

Mov­ing down­stream, can­cer stud­ies are over­whelm­ing­ly in the lead. Sin­gling out Phase I projects, can­cer ac­count­ed for 1,757 out of a to­tal of 3,723 ini­tia­tives, close to half. In Phase II it’s the fo­cus of 1,920 of 4,424 projects. On­ly in late-stage stud­ies does can­cer start to lose its over­whelm­ing dom­i­nance, falling to 329 of 1,257 projects.

PhRMA com­mis­sioned this re­port to un­der­score just how much the in­dus­try is com­mit­ted to R&D and sig­nif­i­cant new drug de­vel­op­ment, a sub­ject that rou­tine­ly comes in­to ques­tion as an­a­lysts eval­u­ate how much mon­ey is de­vot­ed to de­vel­op­ing new drugs in­stead of, say, mar­ket­ing or share buy­backs.

The re­port makes a few oth­er points to un­der­score the na­ture of the work these days.

— Three out of four projects in the clin­ic were an­gling for first-in-class sta­tus, spot­light­ing the em­pha­sis on ad­vanc­ing new med­i­cines that can make a dif­fer­ence for pa­tients. Me-too drugs are com­plete­ly out of fash­ion, un­like­ly to com­mand much weight with pay­ers.

— Of all the projects in clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment, 822 were for or­phan drugs look­ing to serve a mar­ket of 200,000 or less. Or­phan drugs have per­formed well, able to com­mand high prices and ben­e­fit­ing from in­cen­tives un­der fed­er­al law.

— There were 731 cell and gene ther­a­py projects in the clin­ic, with bio­phar­ma look­ing at pi­o­neer­ing ap­provals in CAR-T, with No­var­tis and Kite, as well as the first US OK for a gene ther­a­py, with the first ap­pli­ca­tion ac­cept­ed this week for a pri­or­i­ty re­view of a new ther­a­py from Spark Ther­a­peu­tics.


Dis­tri­b­u­tion of prod­ucts and projects by ther­a­peu­tic area and phase


Source: Analy­sis Group, us­ing Eval­u­atePhar­ma da­ta


Unique NMEs in de­vel­op­ment by stage (Au­gust 2016)

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.

Alaa Halawaa, executive director at Mubadala’s US venture group

The ven­ture crew at Mubadala are up­ping their biotech cre­ation game, tak­ing care­ful aim at a new fron­tier in drug de­vel­op­ment

It started with a cup of coffee and a slow burning desire to go early and long in the biotech creation business.

Wrapping up a 15-year discovery stint at Genentech back in the summer of 2021, Rami Hannoush was treated to a caffeine-fueled review of the latest work UCSF’s Jim Wells had been doing on protein degradation — one of the hottest fields in drug development.

“Jim and I have known each other for the past 15 years through Genentech collaborations. We met over coffee, and he was telling me about this concept of the company that he was thinking of,” says Hannoush. “And I got immediately intrigued by it because I knew that this could open up a big space in terms of adding a new modality in drug discovery that is desperately needed in pharma.”

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'Band­ing to­geth­er': 50 fe­male biotech ex­ec­u­tives lay out plans for board di­ver­si­ty, new com­pa­nies and men­tor­ing founders

Earlier this month, during the Silicon Valley Bank meltdown, Angie You recalled the speed with which female biotech CEOs were helping each other connect with bankers, get their wires through and assuage concerns during a financial implosion.

This past weekend, 50 of about 125 women who are part of that Slack group and a broader coalition self-dubbed the Biotech Sisterhood met in person in Cancun for the second rendition of an annual summit connecting female biotech CEOs. The attendance list doubled that of the inaugural gathering in Arizona 12 months ago.

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Rohan Palekar, 89bio CEO

89bio’s PhII da­ta add to quick suc­ces­sion of NASH read­outs as field seeks turn­around

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.

FDA in­di­cates will­ing­ness to ap­prove Bio­gen ALS drug de­spite failed PhI­II study

Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

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Roche and Lil­ly team up to de­vel­op blood test to de­tect ear­ly signs of Alzheimer's

Eli Lilly is teaming up with Roche to help develop a blood test to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and determine whether a patient should go for further confirmatory testing.

Roche’s Elecsys Amyloid Plasma Panel (EAPP) measures pTau 181 protein assay and APOE E4 assay in human blood plasma – elevations in pTau 181 are present in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, while the presence of APO E4 is the most common genetic risk factor for the disease.

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Flare Therapeutics biochemists Yong Li (L) and Valerie Vivat

A $123M Flare will get Third Rock on­col­o­gy biotech in­to the clin­ic this year

Flare Therapeutics will start its first human trial this year with an investigational urothelial cancer drug after pulling together a $123 million Series B from Big Pharmas, VCs and its incubator, Third Rock Ventures.

Launched in 2021 on the idea that a biotech could finally succeed at drugging the much-sought-after but stubborn transcription factor, Flare Therapeutics said Wednesday it is now primed for the clinic after closing its large financing haul earlier this year. The raise is a relatively stark figure in a tough startup financing environment but further buoys the upbeat signals coming out of other Third Rock biotechs in recent weeks, including the $200 million CARGO Therapeutics and $100 million Rapport Therapeutics rounds.

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Francesco Marincola, newly-appointed Sonata Therapeutics CSO

Kite's head of re­search leaves for Flag­ship start­up Sonata

Another leader is departing Kite Pharma, and will to spend the “last part” of his career exploring how cancer evades the immune system.

Kite’s senior VP and global head of cell therapy research Francesco Marincola left the Gilead CAR-T unit last week for Sonata Therapeutics. Flagship last May unveiled the startup, which was pieced together from two fledgling biotechs Inzen and Cygnal Therapeutics. As CSO, Marincola will lead Sonata’s push to reprogram cancer cells to make them more immunogenic.

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Vipin Garg, Altimmune CEO

Al­tim­mune’s shares halved af­ter in­ter­im look at PhII weight loss drug da­ta

Altimmune’s attempt to catch up to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs hit an investor snag Tuesday after the biotech shared interim Phase II weight loss data.

The Maryland biotech’s pemvidutide is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist meant to activate GLP-1 receptors to squash appetite and glucagon to ramp up energy use. The 2.4 mg dose showed a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 9.7% at week 24 of 48, which Jefferies analysts said would be comparable to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Mounjaro).

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