Less than stel­lar Phase I re­sults have trig­gered a pipeline cleanup at Sy­ros Phar­ma, where one of its two lead drugs — a CDK7 in­hibitor ad­min­is­tered in­tra­venous­ly — is get­ting swapped out with an oral ver­sion.

The biotech said it main­tains its be­lief in the CDK7 path­way for can­cer, but thinks pri­or­i­tiz­ing SY-5609, which ap­pears more se­lec­tive and po­tent in pre­clin­i­cal mod­els, is a wis­er choice than hold­ing on­to an IV drug that didn’t quite em­body the op­ti­mal bal­ance be­tween ef­fi­ca­cy and tol­er­a­bil­i­ty. A hu­man tri­al for SY-5609 is planned for ear­ly next year.

Sy­ros had po­si­tioned SY-1365 in a num­ber of sol­id tu­mors marked by spe­cif­ic ge­net­ic mu­ta­tions, in­clud­ing ovar­i­an and breast can­cers. Hav­ing treat­ed 68 pa­tients in an ex­pan­sion por­tion of the tri­al with both sin­gle-agent and com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies — tar­get­ing some pa­tients who are re­sis­tant to CDK4/6 in­hibitors — in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­clud­ed they would need more fre­quent dos­ing to sus­tain the lev­el of CDK7 they need.

No­tably, on­ly 24 pa­tients were evalu­able at the da­ta cut­off, and none had bet­ter re­sponse than sta­ble dis­ease. Of those treat­ed with sin­gle-agent SY-1365, 42% had sta­ble dis­ease as de­fined by RE­CIST cri­te­ria, and the per­cent­age was 64% in the com­bo group (who were al­so giv­en ful­ves­trant or car­bo­platin).

Nan­cy Si­mon­ian Sy­ros

“We have gained im­por­tant in­sights from our work on SY-1365 that have in­formed our de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy for SY-5609, in­clud­ing fo­cus­ing on pa­tient pop­u­la­tions most like­ly to re­spond to a CDK7 in­hibitor,” CEO Nan­cy Si­mon­ian said in a state­ment. “We are pri­or­i­tiz­ing SY-5609 be­cause we be­lieve it has best-in-class po­ten­tial and that it pro­vides the great­est op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­al­ize the promise of se­lec­tive CDK7 in­hi­bi­tion for pa­tients.”

In­vestors, though, saw the glass half emp­ty. Shares $SYRS are down 33.32% to $6.74.

This is not the first time Sy­ros’ lead drugs have dis­ap­point­ed. SY-1425, their RARα ag­o­nist de­ployed against acute myeloid leukemia, flopped in a Phase II two years ago. Sy­ros is con­duct­ing an­oth­er tri­al pair­ing the drug with azac­i­ti­dine, the stan­dard of care, that they say is turn­ing up high­er re­sponse rates. They will need some sol­id, hard da­ta to win skep­tics back.

The top career staff at the FDA has vowed not to let politics overrule science when looking at vaccine data this fall. But Alex Azar, who happens to be their boss’s boss, apparently won’t even give them a chance to stand in the way.

In a new memorandum issued Tuesday last week, the HHS chief stripped the FDA and other health agencies under his purview of their rule making ability, asserting all such power “is reserved to the Secretary.” Sheila Kaplan of the New York Times first obtained and reported the details of the September 15 bulletin.

Having worked in parallel for years to move their respective PD-1 inhibitors up to the first-line treatment of gastrointestinal cancers, Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb finally have the data at ESMO for a showdown.

Comparing KEYNOTE-590 and CheckMate-649, of course, comes with the usual caveats. But a side-by-side look at the overall survival numbers also offer some perspective on a new frontier for the reigning checkpoint rivals, both of whom are claiming to have achieved a first.

President Donald Trump, who seems intent on announcing a COVID-19 vaccine before Election Day, could legally authorize a vaccine over the objections of experts, officials at the FDA and even vaccine manufacturers, who have pledged not to release any vaccine unless it’s proved safe and effective.

In podcasts, public forums, social media and medical journals, a growing number of prominent health leaders say they fear that Trump — who has repeatedly signaled his desire for the swift approval of a vaccine and his displeasure with perceived delays at the FDA — will take matters into his own hands, running roughshod over the usual regulatory process.

Moving into earlier and earlier treatment lines, Bristol Myers Squibb is reporting that adjuvant treatment with Opdivo has doubled the time that esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer patients stay free of disease.

With the CheckMate-577 data at ESMO, CMO Samit Hirawat said, the company believes it can change the treatment paradigm.

While a quarter to 30% of patients typically achieve a complete response following chemoradiation therapy and surgery, the rest do not, said Ronan Kelly of Baylor University Medical Center. The recurrence rate is also high within the first year, Hirawat added.

Does Seattle Genetics have another approval on its hands?

The last 12 months, not so great for the world, has been great for Seattle Genetics. The company landed two separate FDA approvals, signed a $4.5 billion deal with Merck and watched antibody-drug conjugates — the technology they spent years developing to broad industry skepticism — emerge suddenly as one of the most popular approaches in oncology. And on Monday at ESMO, the company and their partners at Genmab unveiled the data behind the ADC it hopes will provide its next major FDA approval.

A little under two years after a company rebranding, Immune Regulation is taking an even bigger step toward advancing its goals.

Formerly known as Peptinnovate, the British biotech announced a $53.4 million Series B early Monday morning, helping to further advance two clinical programs in rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. Though those are the two initial indications the company is focusing on, CEO Jonathan Rigby told Endpoints News he hopes the candidates can be applied to a broad swath of autoimmune disorders.

J&J’s one-two punch on EGFR-mutant non-small cell lung cancer has turned up some promising — although decidedly early — results, fueling the idea that there’s yet room to one up on third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors.

Twenty out of 20 advanced NSCLC patients had a response after taking a combination of an in-house TKI dubbed lazertinib and amivantamab, a bispecific antibody targeting both EGFR and cMET engineered on partner Genmab’s platform, J&J reported at ESMO. All were treatment-naïve, and none has seen their cancer progress at a median follow-up of seven months.