This Industry Update covers the period from 1 June through to 30 June 2018, and is based on information sourced from company press releases, scientific literature, patents and various news websites. The month saw the staging of American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting (ASCO) 2018 (Chicago, IL June 1–5), a leading oncology conference, at which updates on several drug trials were presented. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NY, USA) and Nektar (NY, USA) presented encouraging results from an early stage study looking at the effectiveness of a combination of Opdivo and NKTR-214 in a range of cancers. Merck (NJ, USA), made several presentations on its PD-1 inhibitor, Keytruda, including in combination with chemotherapy in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer in a Phase III study, and with Eisai’s (NJ, USA) LENVIMA R(lenvatinib) for several tumor types in early studies that demonstrated promising clinical activity. There were also updates from Loxo Oncology (CT, USA) and a collaboration between Celgene (NJ, USA) and Bluebird Bio (MA, USA), focusing on CAR-T therapy. Grail Inc (CA, USA), presented data for high-intensity sequencing approach to detection of tumor signals in the blood, that offer hope that it will be able to provide a diagnostic for very early detection of cancer. In other indications, there were encouraging results from Biogen (MA, USA) and Eisai for their BACE inhibitor being developed for the treatment of Alzheimer’s, but failure of AstraZeneca and Lilly for their treatment in the same indication. The month also saw an approval by the US FDA of GW Pharmaceutical’s (London, UK) cannabidiol drug for the treatment of epilepsy, but a further rejection for Mylan’s generic version of Advair, a respiratory drug, although this time round the issues were said to be minor. Finally on the commercial front, Novartis (Basel, Switzerland) announced that it will spin off its ophthalmology business, Alcon as a separate company and Oxford Biomedica (Oxford, UK) and Axovant (Basel, Switzerland) announced a license deal for the former’s gene therapy treatment for Parkinson’s disease. © 2016 Future Medicine Ltd.. All rights reserved.
