oncology

biotech / brain cancer / competitive intelligence / Market research / marketing / oncology / pharma — Comments Off
18
Oct 08

Increasing importance of competitive intelligence in bear markets

In tough economic times, many companies are forced to downsize, trim budgets and preserve profit margins, while expecting a leaner, meaner organisation to survive the tempest. The reality is that the changes leave fewer people to accomplish the same amount of work on less marketing dollars; productivity becomes the new name of the game.

This is where good companies get smarter and focus on cost effective ways of making their budgets go further. One of the biggest challenges with pure market research, for example, is that results are often regional, forcing clients to consider a broad selection of target markets in which to base future directions on. Cutting the scope (i.e. reducing the number of sites) risks missing key data and generalising on more limited patterns.

Enter competitive intelligence, a much broader, more strategic way of gathering general trend data that can help make sense of the market. It is also a good way of keeping tabs on your competitors, because the stronger ones will survive the downturns better.

There are a host of clever tools and secondary data sources out there that can be mined effectively and a big picture of the target market described without the need for repetitive and expensive traditional market research interviewing people or holding focus groups. This is a much more ‘think outside of the box’ approach that rewards creative, enterprising marketers who want to get ahead of their competition.

The lean and mean approach starting with competitive intelligence first means that you can now find the needles in the haystack to point you in the right direction first, then test the specifics rather than relentless and expensive iterations of field testing. After all, those market research honorariums soon start to add up when the budget is tight. As an analogy, if you think about an archer – how can you hit the target if you can’t even see it?

What can companies gain from competitive intelligence prior to market research?

Essentially, because of it’s highly strategic nature, competitive intelligence bridges the gap between management and customers. On the one hand clear, simple elucidation of the risks involved enable management to grasp the big picture quickly and easily, while also offering identifiable actions to the customer that can be executed. Suddenly, this simplification of the data to the salient points enables all levels of the organisation to unite and focus rather than get bogged down in masses of conflicting data.

Using this approach, well designed competitive intelligence and market research questions become complementary and provide a more robust solution of strategic oversight and deep dives into more targeted areas.

Sometimes less really is more.

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abiraterone / biotechnology / cancer / competitive intelligence / Cougar / oncology / pharma / prostate / strategy — Comments Off
2
Sep 08

Abiraterone and prostate cancer

One drug that has been tearing up the newsfeed this year is abiraterone, a novel drug in phase II trials for prostate cancer.

In February, data was presented at ASCO’s Genito-urinary satellite meeting that looked promising. Dr D.C. Danila and researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering reported a small phase II trial in castration resistant metastatic prostate cancer after failure of docetaxel therapy.

They looked at abiraterone acetate (AA), an oral and irreversible inhibitor of CYP17 that decreases testosterone and DHT levels to undetectable. The study sought to determine the proportion of patients achieving a PSA decline of >50% and to assess toxicity. It was a multicenter trial using abiraterone 1000mg orally daily and prednisone 5mg daily. Successful abiraterone activity was defined as a PSA decline >50% in >30% of patients. It was defined as not successful if the PSA decline occurred in <10%>50% PSA decline. Radiological assessment was possible in 26 men who had at least 3 cycles of treatment. No decreases in bone metastasis by bone scans were noted, but some had unchanged bone scans. The addition of prednisone reduced the frequency of adverse events. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) was used as an additional means to asses response to treatment and did correlate with PSA changes.

A total of >5 CTCs prior to treatment that decreased to <3 (link) – including more details on the company developing the agent.

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cancer / iPhone / molecules / oncology / protein drug database — Comments Off
20
Aug 08

New iPhone apps and Protein Drug Database

Abl geneImage via Wikipedia One of coolest apps I’ve come across in the iTunes store is Molecules.

It allows you to select different drugs or molecules from the database and see them in 3 dimensions on the screen. You can even zoom in and see close up detail.

For example, the crystal structure of the C-Abl kinase domain in complex with STI-571 (Gleevec) for Philadelphia-positive Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a beautiful sight.

You can also see more details behind the structure, such as the reference, authors, number of atoms, PDB code, sequence etc.

A very useful tool on the iPhone.

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cancer / competitive intelligence / health / liver cancer / market trends / oncology / pharma / strategy — Comments Off
28
Jul 08

Improving survival in Liver Cancer – at what cost?

No effective therapy is available for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), it’s a terminal condition. Over 18,000 people typically die from it in the USA each year. It is much more common in Africa and East Asia where the risk of infection from Hepatitis B and C is much higher, which are associated with increased risk factors for the disease.

Hepatocellular carcinomaImage via Wikipedia

In this month’s New England Journal of Medicine, a randomised trial involving 602 patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma was reported. Sorafenib, a multikinase inhibitor of Raf, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, and platelet-derived growth factor receptor, improved median survival by 3 months compared to placebo (10.7 vs. 7.9 months, P<0.001). Adverse events, including diarrhea and weight loss, were more frequent in patients receiving sorafenib.

Three months doesn’t sound a lot, but improvements in cancer survival nearly always occur in small increments. The other side of the coin is at what cost?

An editorial by Dr Lewis Roberts in the same journal noted the following:

“The pharmacy price of sorafenib is approximately $5,400 per month in the United States, {euro}3,562 per month in France, $1,400 per month in Korea, and $7,300 per month in China. Even in industrial nations, the high cost of new drugs produces significant stresses on health system budgets. There are substantial ethical implications in having effective therapies available for life threatening diseases that are priced beyond the reach of the populations most in need of therapy.”

Would you pay $15,000 for an extra three months of life?

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cancer / company news / competitive intelligence / Cougar / market intelligence / market trends / oncology / prostate — Comments Off
23
Jul 08

15 minutes of fame in oncology

Wow, my blog on abiraterone in advanced prostate cancer got picked up last night by TopUSAsites for prostate cancer.

It looks like the drug is going to be a hot topic for a while, but caution against the hype is advised until we see whether reduction in PSA and tumour shrinkage actually translates to what really matters to patients – improved survival and better quality of life.

What say you?

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cancer / competitive intelligence / market intelligence / market trends / NHL / oncology / radioimmunotherapy / rituxan / targeted therapy — Comments Off
20
Jul 08

A cancer patient’s inspiring story

A lady who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and relapsed on chemotherapy, tells her story about how she overcame the odds with a promising new approach called radioimmunotherapy:

VIDEO

There is always hope around the corner with new treatments coming on the market.

brain cancer / cancer / competitive intelligence / FGF / glioblastoma / market intelligence / market trends / oncology / Tie-2 — Comments Off
14
Jul 08

Cediranib (AZD2171) in Glioblastoma and brain cancer

The investigational drug AZD2171 (cediranib) from Astra-Zeneca may help shrink tumours and prolong survival of patients with a relatively common, aggressive type of brain cancer. In a phase II study of 31 patients with recurrent glioblastoma, researchers observed that daily treatment with cediranib decreased tumour volume by more than half in 56 percent of patients. These results were reported at the recent AACR meeting.

Nearly 26 percent of patients were alive and their cancer had not progressed six months into treatment. On average, patients experienced a progression-free survival of 117 days and overall survival of 221 days. Cediranib was also found to alleviate brain swelling, a major cause of morbidity among these patients.

Cediranib is a selective signaling inhibitor for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which promotes formation of new blood vessels that tumours need for nourishment and growth. The drug targets all three receptors for VEGF, one of which is expressed on the endothelial cells in glioblastoma.

Two of the 31 patients were removed from the current study because of toxicity (fatigue). Dose reductions, ie short breaks from the drug, were required for most patients, usually due to hypertension, diarrhea and fatigue.

By analyzing blood samples from patients, the researchers found that the biomarkers FGF (fibroblast growth factor) and Tie-2 were associated with tumour progression and could be used to predict treatment failure in this study population. FGF is a protein tied to new blood vessel growth; Tie-2 is a receptor that binds to and is activated by the angiopoietins – protein growth factors required for the formation of blood vessels.

c-Kit / cancer / competitive intelligence / FLT3 / liver cancer / market intelligence / market trends / oncology / VEGF inhition — Comments Off
2
Jul 08

New treatment option for patients with liver cancer

Treatment with sunitinib (Sutent) slows tumour growth and reduces the risk of metastasis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, an aggressive cancer of the liver.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a cancer that relies heavily on blood vessels for growth; sunitinib controls the growth of blood vessels and could therefore potentially play an important role for treatment.

Hepatocellular carcinomaImage via Wikipedia
Patients with this type of liver cancer have a very poor prognosis and the only currently available therapy is sorafenib. This study shows that it may be possible to effectively use sunitinib with manageable side effects, thereby providing patients with an alternative treatment option. Sunitinib (Sutent) is a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets multiple receptors, including VEGFR2, c-Kit and FLT3. These receptors may be present in cancer cells as well as in endothelial and immune cells.

Researchers enrolled 34 patients with advanced liver cancer and gave them 37.5 mg sunitinib daily on a standard four weeks on, two weeks off regimen. By 12 weeks, one patient had a partial response and 17 patients had stable disease. The median progression-free survival was four months and the median overall survival was 10 months.

Source:

AACR

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breast cancer / cancer / competitive intelligence / market intelligence / market trends / oncology / pipeline — 1 Comment
11
Jun 08

Are Her2 inhibitors an alternative to chemo in breast cancer?

Herceptin Fab (antibody) - light and heavy chainsImage via WikipediaSeveral studies exploring the use of lapatinib (Tykerb, GlaxoSmithKline) in metastatic breast cancer have suggested that it may offer an alternative to chemotherapy in this setting, both as monotherapy, and in combination with other targeted therapies.

One study explored the use of lapatinib alone, whereas others investigated combinations with trastuzumab (Herceptin, Genentech/Roche), with bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech/Roche), and with the investigational agent pazopanib (under development by GlaxoSmithKline).

Studies presented at American Society of Clinical Oncology opened up an interesting debate regarding whether biological therapy without chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer is feasible.

The efficacy of these targeted agents is higher when they are combined with chemotherapy, and the toxicity of these agents in combination needs to be explored further. Hence, the preferred front-line choice for metastatic breast cancer is presently trastuzumab with chemotherapy, and the evidence suggests that continuation of trastuzumab is the best option for patients who progress. Combining drugs that have different targets is also a promising option.

Lapatinib is currently approved in the US for a very narrow indication in combination with capecitabine (Xeloda, Roche) for advanced metastatic HER2+ breast cancer in women who have received previous chemotherapy, including an anthracycline, a taxane, and trastuzumab. A similar approval in Europe is pending with the EMEA.

The largest of the new trials presented was a phase 3 study of lapatinib monotherapy compared with a combination of lapatinib and trastuzumab (EGF104900). Both of these drugs target HER2+ breast cancer, but trastuzumab (a monoclonal antibody) is a large-protein molecule that targets the part of the HER2 protein on the outside of the cell; lapatinib (an oral drug) is a smaller molecule that enters the cell and blocks the function of this and other proteins intracellularly. The combination effectively attacks HER2 from multiple angles.

The trial involved 269 patients with HER2+ breast cancer who had documented progression on trastuzumab in the metastatic setting. The combination of lapatinib plus trastuzumab showed a significant increase in progression-free survival, compared with lapatinib alone (12 weeks vs 8.1 weeks). This translates into a 27% reduction in the risk for disease progression (hazard ratio [HR], 0.73; P = .008). The overall clinical-benefit rate (the response rate and the rate of durable stable disease) for the combination was double that for monotherapy (24.7% vs 12.4%; P = .01). There was a trend toward improved overall survival.

More data on the role of combined HER2+ therapy in combination with chemotherapy will be available soon from the ongoing ALTTO (Adjuvant Lapatinib and/or Trastuzumab Treatment Optimization) study. ALTTO is being conducted in less-heavily pretreated patients with early-stage disease.

A trial of lapatinib plus bevacizumab was reported in a small phase 2 single-group study, conducted in 32 patients who had received a median of 5 previous metastatic breast cancer therapies. 28 of these 32 patients had received prior treatment with trastuzumab.

The combination resulted in a 34.4% clinical-benefit rate (defined as complete response plus partial response plus stable disease at 24 weeks or more), and 62.5% of patients were progression free at week 12.

The most common adverse events were diarrhea (81%), rash (66%), nausea (56%), fatigue (56%), and vomiting (46%). There were 2 grade 2 asymptomatic LVEF decreases, 1 grade 3 gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and 1 grade 3 hypertensive event.

Overall, blocking both the HER2 and the VEGF pathways led to anticancer activity for even heavily pretreated patients with metastatic breast cancer that could potentially advance the treatment of this high-risk disease.

A combination study of lapatinib plus pazopanib, where both drugs were taken orally once daily, suggested that they might provide a potential future treatment option for HER2+ breast cancer. It involved 141 patients and compared the combination with lapatinib monotherapy.

The results confirmed the efficacy of lapatinib monotherapy and showed a trend toward better outcomes with the combination. At 12 weeks, 36.2% of patients taking the combination and 38.9% taking the monotherapy experienced disease progression (P=.37). The response rate was 44.9% with the combination and 28.8% with the monotherapy according to investigator assessment, and 36.2% vs 22.2%, respectively, according to independent assessment.

cancer / company news / competitive intelligence / lung cancer / market intelligence / market trends / oncology — Comments Off
2
Jun 08

Erbitux extends overall survival by 5 weeks in lung cancer


ImClone announced that late-stage study data showed that first-line treatment with Erbitux (cetuximab) plus standard chemotherapy significantly increased overall survival by about five weeks in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), compared with chemotherapy alone. The results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting this weekend.

To put things in context, the American Cancer Society estimates that in the United States, more than 215,000 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008, which accounts for about 15 percent of all cancer diagnoses. Approximately 87 percent of these patients will be diagnosed with NSCLC, with many being diagnosed with locally advanced or metastatic disease. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in men and women, with more than 161,000 deaths expected to occur in 2008 – accounting for about 29 percent of all cancer deaths. In 2008, it is estimated that more Americans will die from lung cancer than breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers combined. Studies showing a significant improvement in survival will therefore impact the course of disease and affect large numbers of patients.

The randomised FLEX study involved 1125 patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had not previously received chemotherapy. The data demonstrated that those who received ImClone announced that Erbitux combined with chemotherapy resulted in a median overall survival of 11.3 months, compared with 10.1 months for chemotherapy alone, a significant difference. The findings also showed that tumours shrank in 36.3 percent of patients who received the Erbitux regimen, compared with 29.2 percent of patients who only received standard chemotherapy.

It is unlikely that the findings are impressive enough to significantly affect the position of Genentech’s Avastin for patients with lung cancer who can be treated with the product in the short term. However, doctors treating patients with NSCLC who cannot take Avastin may opt to prescribe Erbitux, which could lead to an additional $700 million in annual sales in the US.

Overall, probably one in five patients or less get Avastin, so there’s a huge opportunity outside of that in the long run, and the data are very competitive. Erbitux is expected to be filed for expanded US approval in NSCLC in the second half of this year, and the new indication could be added to the label by mid-2009. If approved, this will open new first-line treatment options for patients with non-small cell lung cancer regardless of histological subtypes, and potentially set a new standard in the first-line treatment of this disease.

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