Back In Action — At and After ASCO 2015
By Wayne Koberstein, Executive Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @WayneKoberstein
I have just been on vacation — a vacation from Twitter. Nevertheless, in my absence, I have taken on more followers, collected numerous favorites, and amassed a cache of retweets. Why is that?
It is all thanks to my colleagues at Life Science Leader and the Life Science Connect portals who have maintained a steady feed of tweets, and included my tag, while I did other things — mainly, writing (long-form) and travel (long-distance). This week, I have been completing three major projects in addition to this blog after returning from a trip across the country last week. In the first part of the excursion, my wife and I went to Savannah, Georgia to witness our daughter’s graduation from the Savannah College of Art & Design with a BFA cum laude in Illustration (Scientific). Never heard of the school? Maybe you know about one of its alumni, John Lasseter, founder of Pixar, who gave the commencement address this year. Daughter Genevieve is blending her love of science and art into a single career, with a strong ingredient of “I can do this” practicality, and it’s a joy for us to see, both in the beauty of her work, and in her work ethic.
ACTION AT ASCO
On the way back home from Savannah, I stopped in Chicago for a few days at the annual meeting of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology). There I spent most of my time meeting with key opinion leaders for an upcoming update on our Combination Cancer Immunotherapy series, published September 2014 – January 2015 in Life Science Leader. Most of the experts are leading researchers in the immunotherapy field with whom I spoke at last year’s ASCO meeting. This time, I essentially collected their views on how cancer immunotherapy has progressed during the past year for my report slated for this September, which will also contain important news and analysis about the latest studies of immunotherapeutic combinations and single agents.
Scientists also have personalities, of course, and a blog is a good place to reflect on some of them. Among those I interviewed this year, these few stood out:
Tim Greten is originally German but has been a mainstay of immunology research for years at the National Cancer Institute. He is still youthful and obviously excited to see his native field blossom with so much potential and performance. Though he is cautious about the non-responders and safety issues in the pivotal trials of checkpoint inhibitors, he still regards them as revolutionary in the context of, let’s face it, the mostly disappointing field of oncology. I encourage you to search for and read the publications of recent trials with ipilimumab and nivolumab, used singly and together, to get an idea of the unprecedented, durable response levels the drugs produced — with the newer, PD-1 inhibitor, “Nivo,” alone an obvious improvement on “Ipi.” Unfortunately, their accelerated development is a two-edged sword; side effects can be exaggerated when dose-ranging has been truncated, and unanticipated factors, from length of treatment to corporate strategies, may be limiting the already record response rates.
Mario Sznol of Yale is a cool character. He is markedly credulous — not about immuno-oncology, but about its detractors. His air is one of carefully controlled impatience with those who refuse to see the obvious value of immunotherapy in cancer, whatever hurdles it faces ahead. Similarly, Lawrence Fong of UCSF displays not cool but more like friendly bemusement at the hyper-cautious admonitions of immuno-oncology’s critics. Larry is just positive, openly optimistic and confident in the future of this approach, based not only on the evidence in the data, but also of his own eyes in his daily care of patients.
Susan Slovins of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center makes a good balance to the previous two subjects. The morning of the day we met, she has braved a cancelled flight and an accident that injured her leg to get to her session at ASCO. I agree to walk halfway across McCormick Place to where she rests later, in the speaker’s room high above the exhibit area, but it is worth the hike. Slovins has plenty to say. She begins by explaining that, so far at least, the two leading checkpoint inhibitors have not performed as well in her area, genitourinary cancer, as in others. But she was quick to add she was not pessimistic, just challenged, in facing the task of figuring out why that is so. Most interesting to me: she believes the key is getting the right patients, ready and willing for extended treatments, early in the progression of prostate and other GU cancers, where Big Bio and Big Pharma have unfortunately shied away from running trials. Finding the patients is superable, but the biggest hurdle may be in the business, a lack of companies willing to fund trials in certain indications for fear of their perceived risk. More about all that in the September update…
In addition to the half-dozen experts I interviewed at ASCO, the update will feature others who agreed to speak with me following the meeting, as well as some I had met with earlier. Some of the larger players have also reached out to me and will provide input into the report. Those include companies with currently approved checkpoint inhibitors.
ADD READER FEED
Ahead of actually writing the update, I would also invite you, the reader, to add your comments to the discussion I hope to support with it. Some months ago, we implemented the Comments fields, seen only if you scan down to the bottom of this page. Then, about two months ago, we began our new subscription program. In short, if you want unlimited access to all of our articles and blogs, digitally and in print, you must subscribe. If you want only limited, on-line access to those things, you can and must register free with the website. In some cases, hopefully, your choices will lead you back to this blog, and something I write here may inspire or fire you up to speak in response. As long as it’s not too personal, self-serving, or irrelevant to what I wrote, we would be happy to post your comment as entered in the field below.
Back to the “three major projects” I am completing this week, before leaving for BIO on Sunday: The most notable one is the first installment of the new series, Industry Explorers Blaze On. (I find it seldom necessary to define the concept further after reciting that series name, but in short, it shares lessons learned in the industry through long careers that show no sign of ending.) My first subject in the series in Dr. William Comer, once the long-time head of research at Bristol-Myers and now CEO of his own company, NeuroGenetic, out to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease and related conditions. Bill presents a lot of truly valuable experience that can remind us how essential risk-taking is to innovation. I am also finishing another The Enterprisers edition, looking at a company that has resurrected a precise anti-herpetic drug for shingles, and Companies to Watch, spotlighting a tiny company that is blazing new pathways to fighting pain in fibromyalgia and PTSD.
It seems I just got home, and now it’s time to leave again. Please look for my re-emergence on Twitter soon. I should be in full tweet mode during the days at BIO. If I don’t see you there, you can always see me here.