Mer­ck KGaA and their part­ners at Pfiz­er have an­oth­er big set­back to re­port for their PD-L1 check­point drug Baven­cio.

The check­point ei­ther alone or in com­bi­na­tion with chemother­a­py failed to hit ei­ther the over­all sur­vival or pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival end­points in their Phase III JAVELIN Ovar­i­an 200 study for drug-re­sis­tant ovar­i­an can­cer. The news comes 9 months af­ter re­searchers al­so re­port­ed a fail for their check­point on sec­ond-line lung can­cer, lead­ing some an­a­lysts to con­clude that their big Baven­cio pro­gram was look­ing like a run­ner-up in the in­tense­ly com­pet­i­tive field.

Lu­ciano Ros­set­ti, Mer­ck KGaA

Baven­cio al­so failed a Phase III study for gas­tric can­cer, putting a crimp in their plans to ramp up sales and rais­ing doubts about their abil­i­ty to com­pete against lead­ers like Mer­ck and Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb.

The haz­ard ra­tio in the lat­est study un­der­scored a mea­ger 5% re­duc­tion in risk on over­all sur­vival for Baven­cio alone and an 11% drop for the com­bi­na­tion arm. That was a flat fail­ure. But re­searchers al­so teased out a pos­i­tive p-val­ue for the com­bi­na­tion arm on pro­gres­sion-free sur­vival.

Key­ing on the pos­i­tive, Mer­ck KGaA R&D chief Lu­ciano Ros­set­ti said that they would con­tin­ue to ex­plore the num­bers.

It hasn’t all been bad news with Baven­cio. Just a cou­ple of months ago their drug came though for re­nal cell car­ci­no­ma pa­tients, set­ting up some speedy ap­pli­ca­tions for mar­ket­ing ap­proval. Re­searchers say it helped PD-L1 ex­press­ing pa­tients and the full pop­u­la­tion, demon­strat­ing a sig­nif­i­cant PFS ben­e­fit com­pared to a con­trol arm treat­ed with Su­tent.

Chris Boshoff

Chris Boshoff, the head of I/O at Pfiz­er Glob­al Prod­uct De­vel­op­ment, had this to say to­day:

We ini­ti­at­ed the JAVELIN Ovar­i­an 200 tri­al as the first Phase III study of a check­point in­hibitor in the plat­inum-re­sis­tant or -re­frac­to­ry set­ting rec­og­niz­ing these pa­tients have the most press­ing need for new treat­ment op­tions. The re­sults speak to the sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges these women face.

During BIO this year, I had a chance to moderate a panel among some of the top tech experts in biopharma on their real-world use of artificial intelligence in R&D. There’s been a lot said about the potential of AI, but I wanted to explore more about what some of the larger players are actually doing with this technology today, and how they see it advancing in the future. It was a fascinating exchange, which you can see here. The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. — John Carroll

As several Big Pharma players secure biotech partners in the oncolytic virus space for new immuno-oncology combos, Cowen and Perceptive Advisors have come out with their own bet on a startup that promises to shine.

The marquee investors are joining MPM, Deerfield, Celgene, Astellas, Arkin and UBS in backing the drug developer, Oncorus, which will now deploy the $79.5 million in Series B cash toward clinical development of its lead program. Other new investors include Surveyor Capital, Sphera Funds, IMM Investment, QUAD Investment Management, UTC Investment, SV Investment Corp and Shinhan Investment-Private Equity, the last five of which are Korean-based funds.

Nearly two years after making its public debut, UK-based NuCana’s mission to make chemotherapies more potent and safer was dealt a blow, after a pivotal study testing its lead experimental drug halted enrollment in a hard-to-treat advanced form of cancer, following a futility analysis.

The drug, Acelarin, is being evaluated for use in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients who were not considered suitable for combination chemotherapy. In the late-stage ACELARATE study — which compared the experimental drug against the chemotherapy gemcitabine — 200 patients had been enrolled by the sponsor, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, before an analysis from an independent safety and data monitoring panel suggested the study’s main goal would not be met.