That is the web version of ESMO in 30 Seconds, a pop-up publication from the European Society for Medical Oncology’s annual assembly in Barcelona, Spain. Join the remaining editions right here.
One of many large shows of this 12 months’s ESMO (not less than in our view) comes tomorrow morning brilliant and early. David Spigel of Sarah Cannon Analysis Institute in Nashville will unveil outcomes from the GALAXIES Lung-201 research of an anti-TIGIT remedy from iTeos Therapeutics and GSK in non-small cell lung most cancers.
It’s an enormous second for each iTeos and the broader efforts to develop TIGIT-targeting remedies. (To stand up to hurry, take a look at my colleague Adam Feuerstein’s preview of the presentation right here.) Whereas TIGIT was as soon as hyped as the subsequent nice immunotherapy goal, numerous failed trials has cooled that sentiment, and a few drugmakers have pared their TIGIT applications.
We’ll have a narrative on the outcomes and what they might imply for TIGIT up tomorrow morning native time — simply considered one of a number of tales we now have deliberate for the weekend. (At this level, we’ll be aware that these shall be STAT+ tales. We simply so occur to have fairly a deal on a STAT+ subscription — $5 for 3 months! — working for the time being. Particulars right here.)
An injectable PD-(L)1 is right here
Roche introduced Friday that it had obtained FDA approval for an injectable type of its PD-(L)1 inhibitor Tecentriq, the primary subcutaneous model of any such drug to achieve the U.S. market.
In a dialog with STAT Friday at ESMO, Charlie Fuchs, the corporate’s head of oncology, stated the brand new formulation may very well be a boon for each sufferers and most cancers facilities.
Sufferers can now get their medication administered in an injection that takes about seven minutes, in comparison with the 30 to 60 minutes that the IV infusion takes, in accordance with Roche. Fuchs, who used to supervise infusion facilities in his outdated function as director of the Yale Most cancers Heart, additionally stated it could permit these facilities to see extra sufferers by releasing up chair house.
There’s loads of potential upside for Roche as effectively, he acknowledged.
“The issues that you may make extra engaging to sufferers and to suppliers and the place you’ve many options by way of your skill to deal with with checkpoint inhibitors, effectively, that’s most likely good for the underside line,” he stated. “However I need to be clear, what principally motivates us is to do the best factor for sufferers.”
Quite a lot of different international locations have already permitted subcutaneous Tecentriq. Within the U.Okay., Roche has been seeing “moderately good market penetration,” Fuchs stated, each from sufferers who would’ve obtained the IV type, “but additionally sufferers who may think about options.”
A lot of the eye on subcutaneous PD-1s has centered on Merck’s efforts to develop an injectable type of Keytruda, which may assist increase gross sales of its blockbuster as biosimilar competitors looms within the subsequent few years for the IV model.
ESMO goes unfavorable
Research that would change observe or carry new remedies to market dominate dialogue at medical conferences. However in fact, loads of trials don’t work out.
ESMO on Friday gave a primary presentation slot to the Section 3 Capitello-290 research of capivasertib (AstraZeneca’s Truqap) in triple-negative breast most cancers — “our elusive foe,” because the discussant Karen Gelmon of the College of British Columbia referred to as it. The corporate introduced in June, although, the research didn’t meet its main endpoint of bettering survival in sufferers total or in a subgroup of sufferers.
Nonetheless, the presentation allowed Heather McArthur of UT Southwestern to element the total leads to entrance of 1000’s of individuals. Poring over research that don’t work can level to progress sooner or later, and on this case, researchers raised such questions as whether or not the issue could be the goal or the drug, and whether or not the tumors have been growing resistance.
Susan Galbraith, AstraZeneca’s head of oncology R&D, whom STAT chatted with on Friday, famous that Truqap “is doing extraordinarily effectively” commercially in the breast most cancers indication it’s permitted in. She added that the corporate is constant to discover it in different types of breast most cancers, in addition to prostate most cancers.
In her dialogue, Gelmon famous that there was a glimmer within the full knowledge that the drug had had some impact on response charges and on progression-free survival.
“So the research didn’t meet its main endpoint, however was it a unfavorable trial?” she stated. “I’d say no, [though] perhaps that’s my oncological self talking, not liking negativity.”
Checking in on the oncology workforce
At a press convention kicking off this 12 months’s ESMO, the group’s leaders highlighted a spread of practice-changing analysis that was to be offered right here this 12 months. However Andrés Cervantes, ESMO’s president, additionally took time to debate the pressures that the oncology workforce faces.
The group has performed surveys of 1000’s of medical doctors, discovering that greater than 70% of younger medical doctors are exhibiting indicators of burnout.
“Multiple third of these younger individuals answering surveys have been contemplating abandoning the career as a result of it’s too disturbing for them,” Cervantes advised reporters.
Earlier this week, an ESMO process drive printed suggestions to handle threat of burnout and enhance clinician resilience, which embrace methods to advertise psychological and bodily well being, to supply extra coaching and help for clinicians, and to advocate extra strongly for the workforce’s effectively being.
As knowledgeable society, Cervantes stated, ESMO is targeted on “caring for affected person outcomes, but additionally caring for a greater life” for clinicians.
ICYMI: There’s a brand new mind most cancers drug
This isn’t precisely ESMO associated, however we’ll simply flag this STAT story right now on Voranigo, the primary focused remedy developed particularly for low-grade gliomas. In trials, the drug confirmed it prolonged the time sufferers with these tumors may go earlier than turning to poisonous remedies like chemotherapy and radiation.
Up subsequent, researchers are testing Voranigo together with different therapies in higher-grade mind tumors. Medical doctors are additionally hoping that the drug’s approval — a uncommon success in neuro-oncology — may encourage extra corporations to spend money on the sphere.
Extra from ESMO
Whereas the headline ESMO shows stay underneath embargo, many abstracts have been launched earlier this week. Right here’s protection of some that caught our eye:
ApexOnco outlines breast most cancers knowledge from Summit and Akeso. (Maybe you’ve heard of them?)
And Endpoints has the story on Bicycle Therapeutics and its early-stage bladder most cancers trial.
