Research led by the Medical University Vienna shows that an image-based single-cell test could help improve therapy selection for patients with advanced blood cancers. The approach involves testing cancer cells taken from the patient to assess the effects of a panel of different cancer drugs before the clinician makes a…

Caribou Biosciences, the developer of gene-edited cell therapies co-founded by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., has launched an upsized initial public offering that raised $304 million in gross proceeds—about $50 million more than projected just a day earlier. Caribou sold 19 million shares at $16 a share—the top of its…

Alex Trebek appeared well en route to surviving pancreatic cancer this past summer when his doctors followed up his initial successful chemotherapy with an undisclosed immunotherapy. That move backfired. “I was doing so well. And my numbers went down to the equivalent of a normal human being who does not…

Researchers from Cellectis have published a proof-of-concept study detailing the activity of “smart” T-cells capable of sensing and reacting to tumors with micro secretions of therapeutic proteins that improve their ability to fight cancerous cells, potentially paving the way for a next generation of tightly-controlled, highly active—and potentially safer—CAR T-cell…

Sponsored content brought to you by How Single-Cell Functional Proteomics Accelerates Immunotherapy Development: Opportunities from Pre-Clinical to Clinical Stages Many companies are racing to develop cancer immunotherapies–a market estimated to be worth $50 billion and expected to grow exponentially over the next several years. Some of the earliest such approved…

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) said it has more than doubled its funding of research into childhood blood cancers, adding 20 new grants valued at more than $13.8 million to its 2019 portfolio. The new pediatric grants are part of the LLS Children’s Initiative: Cures and Care for Children,…

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s recently announced $4.2 billion partnership to co-develop and co-commercialize Merck KGaA, Darmstadt’s cancer immunotherapy candidate M7824 was a reminder of just how much biopharma giants are willing to invest in a therapeutic area that has generated sometimes-dazzling results. How high is up for immuno-oncology? Numerous firms have ventured their best…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) announced that it has granted priority review status for Merck’s anti-PD-1 drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for the treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) as a monotherapy for patients who disease has not responded to two or more lines of prior therapy. Under…

The FDA has approved an additional use for Agilent Technologies’ Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx assay, expanding its approvals to include another indication for the multi-indication Merck & Co.’s blockbuster anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) cancer immunotherapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab). Dako PD-L1 IHC 22C3 pharmDx is now the first FDA-approved…

IsoPlexis said today it has won a two-year, $1.8 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop an automated assay platform and informatics suite for larger clinical trials of cell therapies. IsoPlexis said it would collaborate with UCLA and other top academic…

Novartis’ Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) will be the first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) cancer immunotherapy to reach the U.S. market following FDA approval yesterday. Kymriah, previously known as CTL019, is indicated for the treatment of second or later relapsed or refractory (r/r) patients up to age 25 with B-cell acute lymphoblastic…

In a new study lead by scientists at the University of Minnesota and Nantes University Hospital in France, researchers showed that the bacteria in a patient’s gut might predict their risk for life-threatening blood infections following high-dose chemotherapy. Approximately 20,000 cancer patients receive high-dose chemotherapy each year in preparation for…

Gigi Chambers has had a lot to contend with as a patient—she’s beaten cancer twice, including stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and then twenty years later was diagnosed with heart failure and received a transplant. But nothing has been more dreadful and uncomfortable than the post-transplant heart biopsies checking for graft…

Having recently finalized its blockbuster acquisition of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) pioneer Seagen, Pfizer is tidying up its oncology house and making a conspicuous shift towards more biologics. The oncology market  is expected to reach $500B by 2030, and Pfizer wants a big piece of it. Especially as the U.S. is making…

A chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with a new cellular binding mechanism targeting CD19 has achieved good results in a Phase I trial in patients with relapsed or refractory B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As reported in the journal Molecular Cancer, the new therapy had an overall response rate of…