ESMO Annual Congress Coverage

Scrip caught up with Olema CEO Sean Bohen ahead of a crucial combination data readout due this month for its novel SERD, palazestrant, which it hopes will put the drug on the path to a $10bn-plus breast cancer market.

SpringWorks’ gamma secretase inhibitor will be available soon for adults at any stage of treatment for desmoid tumors with a list price of $29,000 for a 30-day supply. 

The UK big pharma gets a first-in-class approval in breast cancer, but a challenger is emerging.

There may be a trend towards spinning off business units but Merck continues to sees its three-pillar structure as providing the best protection from downturns in any individual segment.

Public Company Edition: Lexeo raised $100m to advance its genetic medicines. Also, Blue Owl Capital acquired funds managed by Cowen Healthcare Investments, gaining about $1bn in life science assets, BMS priced $4.5bn in notes to fund its Mirati purchase and Viridian raised $185m in a private placement.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks and Seagen CEO David Epstein discussed pressing issues facing the pharmaceutical industry at the recent Galien Forum.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Topics in this latest Chinese-language podcast include the China Center for Drug Evaluation's annual IND and NDA report, highlights of Chinese companies' data readouts at ESMO, and policy signals from the International Biopharma Industry Week Shanghai.

In this week's podcast edition of Five Must-Know Things: did Pfizer miss out on Roivant/Roche deal?; Padcev/Keytruda combo impresses in bladder cancer at ESMO; biggest upfront ever in Daiichi/Merck deal; Rybrevant at ESMO; and subcu Leqembi could open up access.

Revolution Medicines is aiming to go beyond Amgen and Mirati’s first-generation drugs with a multi-RAS targeting therapy - and despite a market sell-off after ESMO, analysts think the company think it is still on track.

Keytruda brought in its usual stacks of cash, but Merck’s Q3 earnings call focused largely on a recent alliance with Daiichi Sankyo and the pharma’s growing emphasis on cancer ADCs.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

The future for AstraZeneca/Daiichi Sankyo’s TROP2-targeted ADC candidate Dato-DXd is looking more positive after details of their TROPION-Lung01 and TROPION-Breast01 Phase III studies were presented at ESMO.

The higher dose of Amgen's Lumakras combined with Vectibix has demonstrated significant superiority in progression-free survival over investigator's choice of therapy in KRAS G12C-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer but the discussant at the combo's ESMO presentation wants to see overall survival data before getting too excited.

Sans Sandoz, Novartis posts a beat-and-raise but its oncology franchise remains undistinguished.

The German biotech presented updated data at ESMO showing strong efficacy in ovarian cancer and other solid tumors, albeit with a higher degree of adverse events, particularly cytokine release syndrome.