Derek Lowe's commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. An editorially independent blog from the publishers of Science Translational Medicine. All content is Derek’s own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer.

By Derek Lowe

Posts tagged with "Cancer"

• Cancer

  IDO Appears to Have Wiped Out

  1 May, 2018

  We have the answer to a question posed here earlier this month. That was after the Merck/Incyte failure of a combination of Keytruda and Incyte’s IDO (indole 2,3-dioxygenase) inhibitor. That mechanism was supposed to increase T-cell activity, but the trial showed it to have no effect on Keytruda’s efficacy at all. Earlier IDO trials had… Read More

• Cancer

  Spreading Cancer (Or Just Waking It Up)

  20 April, 2018

  If you look at any collection of “common myths about cancer”, you will probably find reassurances about the idea that having cancer surgery might cause the cancer to spread to other parts of the body. I remember coming across this one some years ago being surprised – I’d never heard that one myself, but it… Read More

• Alzheimer's Disease

  Bad Investments

  11 April, 2018

  Here are some sequels to stories I’ve written about here, things that have had some new chapters added to them. First off, this 2015 post mentions the steep drop in shares of Clovis Biotechnology, brought on by a rather sudden revision in the announced clinical performance of their lead drug (the covalent kinase inhibitor rociletinib). Well… Read More

• Cancer

  IDO Inhibitors Hit a Wall

  9 April, 2018

  Friday brought some very unwelcome news in oncology. I’ve written about IDO inhibitors before, partly in the context of an odd situation between Incyte and Flexus, and partly in response to a recent failed trial of a compound from NewLink. That last one shook people up a bit, but (as I mentioned in the post) Read More

• Business and Markets

  One Of Those Binary Events for AbbVie

  22 March, 2018

  Back in late 2015, I wrote about cancer stem cells, the idea that some tumors are driven by populations of slow-dividing stem cells. The theory has been that these are always going to be in there fighting against your efforts to kill off the downstream tumor cells, so unless you find a way to target… Read More

• Business and Markets

  Pay Your Money and Hold Your Breath

  14 February, 2018

  In another example of the white-knuckle here-we-go nature of the drug business, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced this morning that they’re doing a huge deal with Nektar Therapeutics for their immune stimulant drug candidate, NKTR-214. Well, actually, they’re not getting the drug, because the development deal is non-exclusive. And theyR… Read More

• Cancer

  The Next Immuno-oncology Frontier?

  9 February, 2018

  Here’s some strong evidence for what could be the next wave of immuno-oncology: combining a TLR9 ligand with an OX40 antibody. We’re all going to have to get familiar with that sort of talk, so here’s what’s going on: As those who have worked in inflammation or infectious disease know well, the TLRs (Toll-like receptors) Read More

• Business and Markets

  Bristol-Myers Squibb Sows Confusion

  6 February, 2018

  Yesterday was a weird day for Bristol-Myers Squibb. The company announced the results of a highly anticipated clinical trial, one combining Opdivo (nivolumab) and Yervoy (ipilimumab) in lung cancer patients. As those who follow this area know, BMS has been losing ground to Merck for the last year or two, as Merck’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) ma… Read More

• Cancer

  A Hard Look At Liquid Biopsies

  22 January, 2018

  This new paper has generated a lot of headlines (Science news writeup here). It reports work on the long-sought “liquid biopsy” idea for cancer screening, the use of circulating biomarkers to detect tumors via a blood test. The idea has obvious appeal, so much appeal that many news stories over the years have gotten well… Read More

• Biological News

  The Landscape of Kinase Inhibitors

  16 January, 2018

  I’ve been meaning to link to this article, which is the best overview I know of for kinase inhibitors. The authors (a large multicenter team led out of Munich) characterize 243 (!) kinase inhibitors that have made it into human trials across a very wide range of the known kinase enzymes, and the result is… Read More