Any­one who fol­lows on­col­o­gy knows the field has at­tract­ed so much at­ten­tion and re­search mon­ey that it sparks a con­tin­u­al erup­tion of bio­phar­ma news as com­pa­nies joust over block­buster mar­kets. That’s kept me busy this year with a string of glob­al con­fabs — as AS­CO be­comes just one big event in a fren­zied com­pe­ti­tion.

John Car­roll

So now I’ll be at­tend­ing ASH in At­lanta in ear­ly De­cem­ber for the first time. What’s on my radar? I turned to Leerink to­day for some sug­ges­tions, and boiled them down here.

Ap­provals for No­var­tis $NVS and Gilead/Kite $GILD for their first CAR-T ap­pli­ca­tions are a his­toric first step, but this tech­nol­o­gy is just now be­gin­ning to write its first com­mer­cial chap­ter. Juno $JUNO is now back af­ter get­ting de­railed with the dis­as­ter that JCAR015 be­came. And in fig­ur­ing out what went wrong there, they are promis­ing to come up with the next big thing in CAR-T: JCAR017. The ther­a­py has pro­duced some jaw-drop­ping ef­fi­ca­cy re­sults and a much im­proved safe­ty pro­file, and now we all want to see every up­date to de­ter­mine if Juno can leapfrog the lead­ers.

No­var­tis, the big phar­ma com­pa­ny that fig­ured out how to work like a biotech on this one, will be of­fer­ing some im­por­tant de­tails on Kym­ri­ah for DL­B­CL, where it’s look­ing to go head-to-head with Gilead’s Yescar­ta. So the up­date on that front from the Gilead/Kite team will earn a close in­spec­tion.

Then there’s Pfiz­er $PFE, an­oth­er of the Big Phar­ma play­ers that has made on­col­o­gy a top pri­or­i­ty. The gi­ant bagged rights to Cel­lec­tis’ $CLLS UCART19 in ALL, and a pre­sen­ta­tion in At­lanta will be close­ly fol­lowed. Cel­lec­tis’ re­cent clin­i­cal hold for its own off-the-shelf ap­proach to CAR-T — an­oth­er po­ten­tial leapfrog ther­a­py — will keep the Paris-based biotech in the in­dus­try’s eye.

Blue­bird bio $BLUE is seem­ing­ly al­ways at ASH and al­ways has some­thing in­ter­est­ing to say. In this case it’s the “Lenti­Glo­bin gene ther­a­py pro­gram in trans­fu­sion-de­pen­dent be­ta-tha­lassemia and se­vere sick­le cell dis­ease, as well as up­dat­ed re­sults of the bb2121 an­ti- BC­MA CAR-T Phase I study in pa­tients with re­lapsed/re­frac­to­ry mul­ti­ple myelo­ma,” to quote Leerink.

Blue­bird, by the way, just an­nounced that it has dosed the first pa­tient in its North­star-3 (HGB-212) tri­al, a Phase III study of Lenti­Glo­bin.

Cel­gene $CELG has had its ups and downs this year, with some stun­ning and un­char­ac­ter­is­tic set­backs that have trig­gered a small rout on their stock, ding­ing a large swath of big biotechs in the process. A good show­ing in At­lanta would go a long way to earn­ing back some of the re­spect it’s long en­joyed. Leerink’s as­sess­ment of what to watch for on their close­ly watched ap­pear­ance at ASH:

(O)ral pre­sen­ta­tions from the bb2121 Phase I study in mul­ti­ple myelo­ma, and from the phase I TRAN­SCEND study of JCAR017 in NHL. CELG pre­pares to ini­ti­ate a piv­otal Phase III tri­al with bb2121 in myelo­ma in the com­ing months. CELG al­so will re­port sev­er­al sets of Phase I da­ta from next-gen CelMod CC-122 in NHL in­di­ca­tions.

I’m al­so pluck­ing Alex­ion $ALXN out of the mix. Their next-gen PNH drug is about the on­ly im­por­tant pro­gram they have in the pipeline, for now, and the ear­ly-stage snap­shot on ALXN1210 will get some at­ten­tion as well.

This next part is web on­ly. I’m round­ing out my list now with sug­ges­tions com­ing in over e-mail along with some sug­ges­tions via an­a­lysts re­marks. 

Spark $ONCE has one of those land­mark drugs we all like to watch in Lux­tur­na, and an­a­lysts at Jef­feries say they’ll be on hand to make sure that the biotech demon­strates con­sis­tent­ly pos­i­tive da­ta on the lead­ing drug in the gene ther­a­py field. “At ASH, we ex­pect SPK-8011 to show gen­er­al con­sis­ten­cy of 11-14% and 20-25%, with the third co­hort ide­al­ly show­ing 50-100% high­er lev­els than the pri­or co­hort,” says an up­beat Michael Yee.

I al­so plan to talk to Ax­el Hoos at GSK about their ear­ly-stage BC­MA-tar­get­ing ther­a­py, an an­ti­body drug con­ju­gate dubbed GSK2857916. Just a few days ago GSK flagged the FDA’s break­through drug des­ig­na­tion, which will like­ly keep it on fast-track de­vel­op­ment. And the phar­ma gi­ant is like­ly to use this pro­gram to high­light a re­turn to late-stage de­vel­op­ment in on­col­o­gy.

Al­so adding Re­gen­eron, which has Phase I tri­als of their an­ti-PD-1 cemi­plimab and CD20xCD3 bis­pe­cif­ic REGN1979 in b-cell lym­phomas, specif­i­cal­ly B-cell non-Hodgkin lym­phoma.

There’s al­so Gami­da Cell, which will have the full Phase II da­ta avail­able on NiCord, now in late-stage de­vel­op­ment.

That’s it for now. These are on­ly the high­lights I’m ze­ro­ing in on. But if you have sug­ges­tions for any­thing im­por­tant I missed, let me know. You can email me at john@end­pointsnews.com.

Im­age: The Geor­gia World Con­gress Cen­ter in At­lanta Shut­ter­stock

Cyclerion Therapeutics may have the design of a Phase IIb study ready to go, but it’s scrambling for a way to fund it.

The company said in a press release that it’s “actively evaluating the best combination of capital, capabilities, and transactions available to it to advance the development of zagociguat,” its lead candidate for a rare, genetic mitochondrial disease known as MELAS.

In a separate SEC filing, Cyclerion once again flagged “substantial doubt about (its) ability to continue as a going concern.” As of the end of 2022, it had cash and cash equivalents of only $13.4 million.

A small, Santa Ana-based biotech created in 2017 is looking to enter a SPAC deal as it lays out plans to begin trials in its lead cell therapy candidates and bring on new executives.

Graf Acquisition Corp. IV and NKGen Biotech announced Thursday, with few other details, that the two companies signed a non-binding letter of intent to “pursue a business combination.” Graf Acquisition II and III withdrew their IPOs last year.

The FDA has rejected Incyte’s extended-release formulation of ruxolitinib tablets, in a surprise setback for the company’s plans to build on its blockbuster Jakafi franchise.

The ruxolitinib XR tablets are designed to be taken once a day, whereas Jakafi is indicated for twice daily dosage (although some patients can take it once daily).

According to Incyte, the FDA acknowledged in its complete response letter that the study submitted in the NDA “met its objective of bioequivalence based on area under the curve (AUC) parameters but identified additional requirements for approval.”