UNMET NEEDS in 2020 Exploring What Innovation Means Today
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VOLUME 38 NUMBER 03 MARCH 2020 UNMET NEEDS IN 2020 Exploring What Innovation Means Today Underserved Areas: Looking Beyond Discussing The Past, Present And Focusing On Collaborative Cancer And Rare Diseases Future Of Cell And Gene Therapies Not ‘Innovative’ Ways To Pay PAGE LEFT BLANK INTENTIONALLY invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa.com STRATEGIC INSIGHTS FOR LIFE SCIENCES DECISION-MAKERS CONTENTS ❚ March 2020 UNMEET NEEDS IN 2020 Exploring What Innovation Means Today 10 14 18 Defining Go And No-Go Disease Discussing The Past, Present And Underserved Areas: Looking Areas As An R&D Business Future Of Cell And Gene Therapies Beyond Cancer And Rare Diseases ED SILVERMAN LUCIE ELLIS MELANIE SENIOR Some believe unmet need refers only to Founding CEO of the UK’s Cell and Gene Oncology and rare diseases dominate the rare diseases and tiny patient Therapy Catapult, Keith Thompson, will industry pipeline, fueled by science, populations. But it is more than this. In retire from the company this year. He regulatory tailwinds and high prices. But 2020, the term sits at the heart of looks back on the last eight years of as the world grapples with coronavirus, decision-making for drug makers – along progress for CGT Catapult and the and with heart disease still the top killer, with cost, access and value, of course. advanced therapies sector – and can our systems fund treatments for more provides words of wisdom for the prevalent conditions? challenges still to come. 24 28 34 UK, Sweden Test Differing Focusing On Collaborative Not EU Health Innovation Partner- Antibiotic Market Models ‘Innovative’ Ways To Pay ship Reflects Medtech’s Role In STEN STOVALL LEELA BARHAM Unmet Needs Sweden and the UK are conducting Innovation is defined by the Cambridge ASHLEY YEO differing “develop and test” programs to dictionary as “(the use of) a new idea or The EU Partnership on Health Innovation, assess so-called “pull” incentives in method.” The term is bandied about a a new public private health care research which an antibiotics innovator will be great deal in the life sciences industry. But partnership, is in the final drafting phase paid an annual fee in return for an access is it helpful to use the term so widely, or before its launch under Horizon Europe. In guarantee for anti-infectives. The projects does the sector risk overlooking true Vivo asks the partnership’s medtech have drawn keen attention from other innovation? This can be applied not only to industry lead, Patrick Boisseau, to set out countries. the drugs coming to market, but how they the innovation challenges for participants. are paid for as well. ©2016 Informa Business Information, Inc., an Informa company March 2020 | In Vivo | 1 ❚ CONTENTS March 2020 DEPARTMENTS ❚ From The Editor AROUND THE INDUSTRY This month, In Vivo is focusing on the theme of 4 Redbiotec Pivots Toward HSV-2 unmet needs in 2020. We are looking at how the And Oncology biggest issues for patients have evolved and JOHN DAVIS whether the strategies of pharmaceutical and 5 New Business Models Are Needed medtech companies are aligned with what soci- LEELA BARHAM ety needs today. 6 Bringing A Different Science Into Solid Tumor Treatment Ed Silverman examines the formulas used by ASHLEY YEO drug developers when making R&D decisions, while Melanie Senior analyzes where money is INFOGRAPHIC: spent in drug development and whether a shift UNMET NEEDS IN 2020 is occurring – pulling investment away from the 8 BEN COMER AND LUCIE ELLIS overcrowded oncology pipeline. GAYLE REMBOLD-FURBERT Expanding on the topic of unmet need, Leela Barham looks at 21st century approaches to market access agreements. She asks the questions, have “in- 40 ON THE MOVE novative” models had their day? And does the terminology matter? Recent executive appointments in the life sciences industry In a face-to-face interview, Keith Thompson, founding-CEO of the UK’s Cell REGINA PALESKI and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult), discusses the journey of cell and gene R&D in the UK since 2012. Thompson will step down as CEO in 44 DEAL-MAKING April 2020, he highlights the greatest achievements of the Catapult so far Deals Shaping The Medical Industry, and discusses steps the sector still needs to take to get more advanced ther- February 2020 apies to more patients. THE STRATEGIC TRANSACTIONS TEAM Also included in this issue: an infographic looking at rare disease indications that have seen treatments reach the market for the first time, including reac- EXCLUSIVE ONLINE CONTENT tions from patient advocacy groups; and an exclusive interview with Patrick invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa.com Boisseau, MedTech Europe’s director of European research and innovation partnership policies, about the latest European public-private health care re- ❚ Checkpoint Inhibitor Deals: search partnership to launch under Horizon Europe. Searching For IO Combinations To As always, there are many more features and news articles that are not in- Unlock Cancer’s Black Box cluded in this issue. Go online to get all In Vivo content in one place, includ- BEN COMER ing a fact file on coronavirus, an analysis of Novartis’s attempts to make a ❚ Mehta Analysis: Biopharma 3.0 – shift in workplace culture and more: invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa. An Industry Society Could Cherish com. VIREN MEHTA ❚ Medtech Giants Ready To Battle Frontrunner Intuitive Surgical In In Vivo: Always Online First Don’t have an online user account? 'Soft Surgery Robotics' Quickly and easily create one Relevant and exclusive online-only MARION WEBB by clicking on the “Create your content at your fingertips 24/7. ❚ account” link at the top of the page. Fact File: Coronavirus Pipeline Full access to our 36-year archive. And Corporate Updates Contact: LUCIE ELLIS Access your subscription by visiting: [email protected] invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa. or call: (888) 670-8900 or +1 (908) ❚ Device/Diagnostics Quarterly com and log in. 748-1221 for additional information. Dealmaking Statistics, Q4 2019 AMANDA MICKLUS AND MAUREEN RIORDAN All stock images in this publication courtesy of /invivo @invivo /invivo www.shutterstock.com unless otherwise stated. 2 | | March 2020 invivo.pharmamedtechbi.com In Vivo invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa.com invivo.pharmaintelligence.informa.com CONTENTS ❚ ❚ Up-Front SNAPSHOTS FROM MARCH’S CONTENT Five areas Investment in cell and gene being prioritized by manufacturing has been MedTech Europe as a part transformational for the UK of the new Horizon Europe market. “It has unlocked Partnership for Health hundreds of millions of Innovation scheme: pounds in investment by venture capitalists, and accelerated firms to get into 1 manufacturing at scale a lot earlier than they ever would Harnessing synergies have done otherwise.” PAGE 14 2 – Keith Thompson, founding-CEO of the Cell Patient-centric, integrated and Gene Therapy Catapult care solutions 3 “ Sweden is a small country, comprising 10 million people. The Swedes have very good stewardship around antibiotics and Applying Big Data and have very low levels of resistance, so their key issue is access.” advanced analytics PAGE 24 – Colm Leonard, consulting advisor at NICE 4 INFOGRAPHIC: PAGE 8 Empowering patients 42% 76 OF THE DRUGS THE NUMBER OF 5 APPROVED BY ORPHAN DRUG- THE FDA WERE DESIGNATED INDICATED FOR PRODUCTS APPROVED Value initiatives THE FIRST GENE AND CELL RARE DISEASES BY THE US FDA PAGE 34 THERAPY APPROVALS GRANTED IN 2019 FOR THE FIRST TIME BY THE FDA - SPARK THERAPEUTICS' BEVERLEY FRANCIS-GIBSON BETWEEN LUXTURNA AND NOVARTIS'S AND OTHER PATIENT ADVOCACY LEADERS COMMENT ON NEW JAN 2016 − JAN 2020 KYMRIAH - ARE BOTH INDICATED TREATMENTS FOR RARE DISEASES FOR RARE DISEASES ©2016 Informa Business Information, Inc., an Informa company March 2020 | In Vivo | 3 ❚ Around The Industry Redbiotec Pivots Toward HSV-2 And Oncology Redbiotec has reached a new inflection point as it progresses two key programs in her- collaborating on the next stage of develop- pes and cancer. The company’s CEO and CSO explain how it hopes to use bacteria as a ment, validation of Redbiotec’s approach in delivery system for genes or proteins to treat cancer. the clinic. Schaub said he was encouraged by big pharma maintaining a “watching Having successfully sold its cytomega- brief” in the area. lovirus vaccine business to Pfizer Inc. in A second therapeutic area that Red- 2015, Zurich, Switzerland-based Redbiotec biotec is exploring is the use of bacteria AG is again approaching key business in- to fight cancer. “We are convinced that flection points with the new technologies bacteria can play a major role in fighting it has in development. cancer,” said Schaub. “Some bacteria This time around Redbiotec is develop- have a natural tropism to proliferate at ing two potential technologies: a therapeu- tumor sites, and if we can engineer them tic vaccine for HSV-2, a viral infection that AG : Redbiotec to enter tumor cells and release agents to has proven difficult to address successfully trigger the effect you want, then we be- with conventional treatment approaches; SOURCE lieve we have a powerful weapon to fight and the use of bacteria as delivery systems cancer alone, or work in combination with for genes and proteins to treat cancer. lead our business to a transaction with a chemotherapy,” he explained. Redbiotec was first spun out of the major pharmaceutical company. Our chal- Stergiou added that Redbiotec’s engi- Swiss science and technology university lenge was to find the next big thing.” neered bacteria accumulate in tumors be- ETH Zurich back in 2006. At that time, it One challenge that Redbiotec decided cause of their immunosuppressive, hypoxic was conducting research mainly into the to take on was finding a therapeutic vac- and nutrient-rich micro-environments, expression of multiprotein complexes, and cine, or immunotherapy, against HSV-2 and wild-type strains are used to which was backed by both institutional and pri- infection, or genital herpes, for which there patients should not have already mounted vate investors, including Zurcher Kantonal- is still no vaccine on the market and better an immune response.