CognitrexCancerDigest

Roche announced that the phase III IMpassion031 study, evaluating Tecentriq (atezolizumab) in combination with chemotherapy (Abraxane, albumin-bound paclitaxel; nab-paclitaxel; followed by doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide) in comparison to placebo plus chemotherapy (including Abraxane), met its primary endpoint by demonstrating a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in pathological complete response (pCR) for the treatment of people with early triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), regardless of PD-L1 expression. “Triple-negative breast cancer remains an aggressive disease with high rates of recurrence,” said Levi Garraway, M.D, Ph.D, Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development. “Our goal in treating TNBC at its earliest stages is to provide people with the best chance for a future cure. Adding Tecentriq to chemotherapy now has the potential to help women with TNBC at multiple different stages of the disease.” In the study, fewer pati...

Drug firm Roche Pharma India on Thursday said it has expanded its partnership with domestic pharma major Cipla to further improve access to its key oncology medicines in India. Roche Pharma India has signed a "distribution agreement with Cipla to expand the scope of the partnership to include, marketing and distribution of its trademark oncology drugs - trastuzumab (Herclon), bevacizumab (Avastin) and rituximab (Ristova) in India," the company said in a statement. The two companies had previously entered into a similar agreement in February 2018 for promotion and distribution of tocilizumab (Actemra) and other products, it added. "We have been working as a partner with Cipla for some of our products... We hope to extend the same support to patients in India through this new agreement,” Roche Products (India) general manager V Simpson Emmanuel said. This deal will ensure that the company's focus on providing Roche innovations in India remains steadfast in this...

Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, a global biopharmaceutical company, announced along with its partner PharmaMar that the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) approved Zepzelca (lurbinectedin) for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) with disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Zepzelca was approved under accelerated approval based on overall response rate (ORR) and duration of response. Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial. The US FDA approval of Zepzelca is based on monotherapy clinical data from an open-label, multi-center, single-arm study in 105 adult platinum-sensitive and platinum-resistant patients with SCLC who had disease progression after treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy. The data, which appeared in The Lancet Oncology May 2020 issue, showed that in patients with relapsed SCLC, Zepzelca demonstrated an ORR of 3...

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the Merck & Co. immunotherapy Keytruda for people whose tumors have a certain number of genetic mutations — a measure called high tumor mutational burden — no matter where their cancer originated. The decision marks the second so-called tissue agnostic approval for Keytruda, which made history in 2017 when the Food and Drug Administration cleared it for patients whose tumors have one of two genetic problems — microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficiency. Other tissue agnostic approvals for Bayer's Vitrakvi and Roche's Rozlytrek have since followed. Tumor mutational burden, or TMB, has been studied in multiple immunotherapy trials, but Merck's approval marks its first validation by a drug regulator. Merck rival Bristol Myers Squibb had focused on TMB in developing its immunotherapy combination for lung cancer, which was approved last month. But the FDA didn't mention the marker in its decision. Wednesd...

One of the largest drugmakers in the U.K. is partnering with a U.S.-based biotech company focused on an emerging area of cancer therapy whereby drugs kill cancer cells by targeting multiple genes. London-based GlaxoSmithKline  said  Tuesday that it would partner with South San Francisco, California-based Ideaya Biosciences on research into synthetic lethality, whereby a drug kills a cancer cell by knocking down two genes in combination, whereas the cell would survive if only one of those genes were targeted. Under the deal,  GSK  is paying  Ideaya  $100 million upfront, along with making a $20 million equity purchase of the company’s stock and a potential $50 million option exercise fee for one of its programs. Ideaya would also be entitled to receive preclinical, clinical and sales milestones. Shares of Ideaya were up more than 30% on the Nasdaq in late-morning trading Tuesday. Shares of GSK were up more than 1% on the London and New York stock exc...

A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) and doctors from the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), Mumbai, will soon start the first clinical trial of indigenously developed CAR-T technology in the country for the treatment of blood cancer. The central government’s National Biopharma Mission (NBM) -Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) has now approved ₹18.96 crore to the team for conducting a first-in-human phase-1/2 clinical trial of the CAR-T cells. The novel CAR-T cells will act are drugs that were indigenously developed at IIT Bombay by Rahul Purwar, a professor from the Bioscience and Bioengineering (BSBE) department. The design, development, and extensive pre-clinical testing was carried out in a laboratory with clinical inputs from Dr Gaurav Narula, professor of Pediatric Oncology and Health Sciences, and his team from TMC. The team has filed for national and international patents for the product. While the CAR-T cell technology ...

Onco.com, India’s leading digital platform for cancer care, recently received global recognition for its advanced technology platform “Online Cancer Patient Assistance Pathway” (OCPAP™) at the recently held annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in May 2020. A concordance study comparing the treatment guidance provided by the OCPAP™ platform against that provided by a panel of senior oncologists was found to provide the right treatment guidance to patients with very high accuracy. The Study was presented by Dr Amit Jotwani, co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Onco.com. As per the Global Survey of Clinical Oncology Workforce 2018, for every 10,000 cancer patients, there are only 1 to 5 trained oncologists in developing countries like India. Scarcity of oncologists and lack of accessibility to healthcare are key factors that contribute to the high mortality-incidence ratio of 0.68. In light of these staggering statistics, Onco.com’s concordance study o...