Juno’s (JUNO) JCAR017 and JCAR014 are chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) product candidates that target CD19, a protein expressed on the surface of almost all B cell malignancies. These malignancies include non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The clinical trial results of Juno’s CAR-T product JCAR017 in relapsed and refractory (r/r) aggressive B cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) are …

AT ASCO CAR-T Was Created to Stay BlueBird Bio CAR-T Results Bluebird Bio (BLUE) presentation was well received at ASCO after the firm stated results demonstrating that all the 15 evaluable patients in the clinical trial of its chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) drug “bb2121 responded to treatment. Data were convincing demonstrating 89% of the patients observed their tumors shrink with 27% seeing their …

It is obvious that the CAR-T approach to cancer treatment is here to stay and to change the way cancer has been managed for decades. Attempts to improve the novel elegant procedure safety profile and efficacy on solid cancers are being pursued by academia as well as by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Kite Pharma’s (KITE) CAR-T therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel is an investigational therapy in which …

Prohost Letter #409 ASCO The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting is around the corner. The Meeting, which will begin on Friday June 2, 2017 and will end on Monday 5, 2017 will be different than the past years for many reasons, including the following: -­ Checkpoint inhibition as Immunotherapy for cancer treatment moved from wishful thinking a decade ago, to promising cancer treatments …

Prohost Letter #407 AT A GLANCE - Firms Added to Prohost Portfolio PROHOST IS PICKING NEUROCRINE BIOSCIENCES   On March 27, a few days before the FDA approves Neurocrine’s (NBIX) drug Ingrezza, (valbenazine) capsules for adults with tardive dyskinesia (TD), we posted an article titled “Time for Transformation and Achievements”. In the article, we stated that Neurocrine Sciences Ingrezza will highlight Neurocrine Biosciences and its …

CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY 2 Nonstop Improvements and Nonstop Discoveries In CAR-T Immunotherapy As we said in the article about checkpoint inhibition as cancer immunotherapy, the approaches that aim at enabling the immune system to fight cancer cells were created to stay and improve and become the gold standard for cancer treatment. Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapeutics are speeding their way towards approval in 2017. …

Making Sure that CAR-T Therapy for Cancer Succeeds Academic Researchers Identify a New Process to Raise Natural Armies of Cancer-Targeting T Lymphocytes Outside the Body Unleashing More Power to the Immune System to Fight All Types of Cancers GOOD NEWS FOR CAR-T IMMUNOTHERAPY DEVELOPERS Researchers from Mayo Clinic and the University of Washington have developed a new culture process to improve the efficacy of engineered …

Prohost Letter #404 Part 2 Synthetic Biology (2) A Brief History DNA is the software of life. This is how Synthetic Genomics firm, which we believe is now is the leading biotech firm for applied synthetic biology. Synthetic Genomics is still a private firm in spite of that thousands of investors are impatiently waiting for it to turn public and it will. So stay tuned. …

Prohost Letter #403 Part 2 Continued From Wednesday Instead of continuing yesterday article about Agenus, we decided to post it all so that the reader can find it in one place. Important changes and additions have been made especially under the headline “Near-­Term Priorities, Possibilities and Catalysts”, which are important to read. Learning More About AGENUS Since its inception, Agenus (AGEN), previously known as Antigenics, …

Immunotherapy Engineered T-Cell Therapy Is Here to Stay Articles aimed at undermining the value of the firms’ chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells as immunotherapy for cancer are less and less convincing to savvy investors. Most of the bloggers who attack the procedure admit at the end of their articles that the approach is promising, but still needs this or that for the sake of perfection, …

Important news is the news that informs about successful achievements that make a difference in treating life-threatening diseases, chronic diseases and diseases with no available treatments. Sometime you might not have a personal interest in one, or another or even all the mentioned firms in the news. For investors in the biotech sector, however, it is good to know the successful treatments that might be …

JUNO   Juno Therapeutics (JUNO), the CAR T developing firm that aims at revolutionizing cancer treatment has gotten the news we anticipated, but significantly faster than we expected. Indeed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has removed the clinical hold on the Phase 2 of the ROCKET clinical trial of its CAR T product JCAR015. The trial was conducted in adult patients with relapsed …

Juno Therapeutics (JUNO) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed a clinical hold on the Phase II clinical trial of JCAR015 in adult patients with relapsed or refractory B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (r/r ALL), known as the “ROCKET” trial. The clinical hold was initiated after patients’ death last week, which followed a recent addition of fludarabine to the pre-conditioning regimen. …

Le CompaGnon Part 2 Wednesday June 22, 2016 From the  American Society of  Clinical  Oncology (ASCO)               Checkpoint inhibitors the CAR T Approach Adoptive cell therapy Oncolytic virus therapy Therapeutic vaccines Cytokines. Le CompaGnon Part 1 dealt with: - The two firms, MERK and BMY, who were the first to get approvals of their checkpoint inhibitors. These two . . . This content is for paid …

Juno Therapeutics (JUNO) is due to receive a fee payment of $50 million from Celgene. The reason for this compensation is that Celgene has exercised its option to develop and commercialize Juno CD19 program outside North America and China. From now on, Juno will share with Celgene the global development expenses for products in the CD19 program outside the U.S. and china and Celgene will have pay …

Dealing With Bacterial Resistance To Antibiotics    In the NEWS THERAVANCE BIOPHARMA At the 26th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID), Theravance Biopharma (TBPH) demonstrated that its drug Vibativ® (televancin) possesses a potent in vitro activity against broad range of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) clinical isolates. These isolates included Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). The antibiotic activity for VIBATIV was seen in 100% of the evaluated S. aureus clinical isolates regardless of their type or resistance …

Prohost Letter #393 IMMUNOTHERAPY - PROHOST PORTFOLIO - NEW PICKS? - A Brief Reminder of the CAR T –TCR Immunotherapy Approaches In this issue we continue our journey inside the territory of cancer immunotherapy. We remind that in the Prohost Letter issue #391, we dealt with the immunotherapy based on genetically engineered T Cells, enabling them to seek out, attack and neutralize cancer cells. The immune system’s T …

Prohost Letter #391 Frightened by the Market and Politicians’ Debates, Not the Drug Industry, Investors are Fleeing the Biotechnology Sector  1. A fruitless debate over the high prices of drugs 2. The low price of oil, the world’s dream for decades, is now considered a disaster for the world economy? 1. The High Drug Price Debate Again, as in past presidential debates, politicians have chosen an …

The Market is Surely Ignoring the Historical Summit Biotech achievements are standing on Right Now     The latest biotech sector’s breakthroughs we presented was the novel powerful gene editing techniques CRISPR/cas9 and TALEN. Our article in the Prohost Letter #390 meant to enable the reader to understand that the evolution in biological sciences, especially in sequencing and analyzing the genome of the sick and healthy cells, has reached a stage …

Prohost Letter #388 TOPICS - 1. AN INDISPENSABLE SHORT INTRODUCTION 2. GENE EDITING 3. GENE THERAPY 4. CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY 1. GENE EDITING Exon Skipping: Biomarin (BMRN); Sarepta (SRPT); These firms are waiting FDA approvals for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) Gene Editing Technology Competitors: Cellectis S.A. (CLLS); CRISPR; PTC Therapeutics (PTCT) Firms Using Different Approaches For DMD Treatment (see Below) Zink Finger Tech: Sangamo (SGMO); RNAi …