Cutting-Edge Science Abounds Across Healthcare Industry
Cutting-Edge Science Abounds Across Healthcare Industry by Harlan Sonderling, ColumbiaManagement
Immuno-oncology (IO): It has long been a scientific goal to treat cancer in a more targeted manner than conventional chemotherapy, which is the controlled delivery of poison to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy has high toxicity and cure rates are low. The essence of immuno-oncology is using the patient’s own immune system to fight tumors, a highly selective, more efficacious treatment with reduced toxicity.
There are currently two broad types of IO therapies being developed. The first is designed to non-selectively stimulate the immune system by blocking PD-1, which is a cloaking mechanism tumors use to conceal their abnormal nature from the body’s immune cell surveillance. It is little surprise that melanoma was the first tumor target of immunotherapy, as melanoma is highly immunogenic (provokes the body’s immune response) and thus has a lower response threshold and higher response rate. Melanoma also showed better initial risk-benefit in combination therapy.
The FDA’s recent approval of the second PD-1 blocker to treat advanced melanoma (skin cancer) sets more clearly the ongoing competitive scientific, regulatory and marketing framework in which numerous global pharmaceutical companies will compete across cancer categories, most notably non-small-cell lung cancer, but also in other solid and blood tumors. So far, PD-1 blockers have not shown efficacy in breast cancer.
Immuno-oncology development broadly is expanding quickly toward (1) combination therapies with existing anti-cancer agents that will begin reporting data this year and (2) different and more selective mechanisms of action
Expect to hear more, too, about anti-PDL-1 drugs, which block the ligands, or matched proteins, of PD-1 receptors; both mechanisms share the goal of blocking cancer cells’ false signals to the immune system. PD-1 blockers may be incrementally more efficacious but also cause more side effects. Expanded late-state human clinical trials will reveal more differentiation.
Perhaps even more cutting-edge IO therapy than PD-1 inhibitors are developmental treatments to genetically modify a patient’s native immune cells to fight cancer, a platform known as CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells). The science broadly involves removing a patient’s immune cells and inserting new genes that specifically recognize cancer cell.
These genetically modified immune cells are then injected back into the patient. Early clinical trials show promise in treating leukemias and blood cancers. Despite this being as exciting as it is futuristic, remember that scientists have for decades sought to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.
The past approach was to vaccinate patients (inject crushed cancer cells into a patient) to teach the immune system to recognize and fight cancer. Estimates are that over 100 such trials have failed. The current approaches are much more elegant and advanced, and there is reason to be excited.
source: http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/02/cutting-edge-science-healthcare/
Cutting-Edge Science Abounds Across Healthcare Industry by Harlan Sonderling, ColumbiaManagement
- Investors in the healthcare industry are enthusiastic and, in some cases, stock valuations may be similarly optimistic.
- Investors who provide funds to develop new therapies should expect and even demand significant scientific breakthroughs.
- Healthcare payers will increasingly pay for healthcare outcomes and seek to foster competition throughout the drug supply chain to control costs.
Immuno-oncology (IO): It has long been a scientific goal to treat cancer in a more targeted manner than conventional chemotherapy, which is the controlled delivery of poison to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy has high toxicity and cure rates are low. The essence of immuno-oncology is using the patient’s own immune system to fight tumors, a highly selective, more efficacious treatment with reduced toxicity.
There are currently two broad types of IO therapies being developed. The first is designed to non-selectively stimulate the immune system by blocking PD-1, which is a cloaking mechanism tumors use to conceal their abnormal nature from the body’s immune cell surveillance. It is little surprise that melanoma was the first tumor target of immunotherapy, as melanoma is highly immunogenic (provokes the body’s immune response) and thus has a lower response threshold and higher response rate. Melanoma also showed better initial risk-benefit in combination therapy.
The FDA’s recent approval of the second PD-1 blocker to treat advanced melanoma (skin cancer) sets more clearly the ongoing competitive scientific, regulatory and marketing framework in which numerous global pharmaceutical companies will compete across cancer categories, most notably non-small-cell lung cancer, but also in other solid and blood tumors. So far, PD-1 blockers have not shown efficacy in breast cancer.
Immuno-oncology development broadly is expanding quickly toward (1) combination therapies with existing anti-cancer agents that will begin reporting data this year and (2) different and more selective mechanisms of action
Expect to hear more, too, about anti-PDL-1 drugs, which block the ligands, or matched proteins, of PD-1 receptors; both mechanisms share the goal of blocking cancer cells’ false signals to the immune system. PD-1 blockers may be incrementally more efficacious but also cause more side effects. Expanded late-state human clinical trials will reveal more differentiation.
Perhaps even more cutting-edge IO therapy than PD-1 inhibitors are developmental treatments to genetically modify a patient’s native immune cells to fight cancer, a platform known as CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells). The science broadly involves removing a patient’s immune cells and inserting new genes that specifically recognize cancer cell.
These genetically modified immune cells are then injected back into the patient. Early clinical trials show promise in treating leukemias and blood cancers. Despite this being as exciting as it is futuristic, remember that scientists have for decades sought to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.
The past approach was to vaccinate patients (inject crushed cancer cells into a patient) to teach the immune system to recognize and fight cancer. Estimates are that over 100 such trials have failed. The current approaches are much more elegant and advanced, and there is reason to be excited.
source: http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/02/cutting-edge-science-healthcare/