(08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelstat

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Fishermangents
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(08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelstat

Post by Fishermangents » Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:46 pm

(08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for COMBINATION TREATMENT FOR HEMATOLOGICAL CANCERS, including Imetelstat.

The present invention relates to a combination treatment for hematological cancers. More specifically; a combination of a telomerase inhibitor and a Bcl-2 inhibitor are useful in treating hematological cancers, including AML. In certain embodiments, the telomerase inhibitor is imetelstat or imetelstat sodium and the Bcl-2 inhibitor is ABT-199.

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/ ... 2018026646

Dogonenuts
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Re: (08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelsta

Post by Dogonenuts » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:51 pm

Fish and some of you more knowledgeable give me your thoughts here. My credentials are that I am an old MD, not a hematolgist, and I hated biochem, microbiology amd genetics in med school, but I do understand some of this stuff and Lord knows I have seen plenty of people with cancer in my practice of anesthesiology over 30 years.

So here is what I see is the most exciting thing about Imet. Traditional chemo just poisoned all rapidly growing cells in the body often reducing the tumor burden to undectectable levels. The only problem is that the “mutant clones” or cancer stem cells survived enough and are the cells with the over active telemorase(90% of cancers). These then often go wild and the cancer returns with a vengeance and the result is a rapid demise of the patient. Some get lucky and all the stem cells get killed, as in my father in law with a noncurable midgrade follicular lymphoma who is still around after one course of chemo 29 years ago, while one of my best friends with almost the same lymphoma died after a grueling 20 year battle including numerous rounds of chemo and two bone marrow transplants.

What I see Janssen gearing up for is to turn traditional cancer treatment on its head by using something as effective as ventoclax to hit the majority of the tumor cells quickly and then turn the Kracken(imet) loose to ferret out the “mutant progitor clones” and turn their telemorase off resulting in a quick demise of the stem cells of the cancer.

Is this what is going on with some of the recent papers we have seen come out or am I way off track?
If it is thenI truly understand what Scarlett said when he said something on the lines of “this thing is bigger thanall of us”.

Thoughts. Combos with the keytrudas, imbruvicas, opdivos....my head starts spinning.

biopearl
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Re: (08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelsta

Post by biopearl » Sun Apr 15, 2018 6:02 am

Dogone, not to worry, you have not inhaled too much leaked gas. Yes the idea is that conventional chemo kills many cells but some cells appear to be chemo resistant with different CD markers and are considered CSCs (cancer stem cells) as they lead the recurrences back with a vengeance. These cells may morph into cells with other characteristics but it does appear that the concept of the CSC is real. This is why the MM study, limited as it was, was very exciting to me as Imetelstat appeared to reduce circulating CSCs in a semi specific way and combination therapy might do even better. There has been lots of evidence that Imetelstat has an effect on multiple cancer cell types, not just myeloproliferative diseases. The promise of combo therapy to really try to wipe out the CSC is where it looks like we go next (after front line MF, MDS and AML) and many doors may open even into solid tumor treatment. The last Needham conference was revealing to the close listener. Scarlett said that patients who continue to show benefit "may continue to receive drug" or something close to that. That means yes some patients are showing benefit and the study has not been stopped for futility, quite the contrary, it continues in full force. He also brought up something that was hinted in the 2016 "real world" J and J ASH presentations namely that at baseline (I presume this means at the time of diagnosis) most patients do not have thrombocytopenia OR SPLENOMEGALY. So this whole comparison with Jakafi may be a little misleading but they had to do it since it was the only approved drug. The idea appears to be a much more realistic one, namely evaluate the drug the way it should be, are symptoms better, is QOL better, are patients living longer and is the bone marrow (or surrogate markers of same) showing disease modification. The data appears to support this. Since these patients in the R/R study are the sickest of the sick expecting that their spleens will regress to the extent shown in front line Jakafi patients obviates the far more important end points of OS and the benefits of directly targeting the malignant clone itself. As you allude, we are just seeing the effects in these limited studies of Imetelstat as a single agent. Bigger than all of us will be combination therapies and this promise of this awaits. Regards, bp

Fishermangents
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Re: (08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelsta

Post by Fishermangents » Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:11 pm

Great comments, thanks. For now I would stIck to hematolgic cancers and leave solid tumors aside. This patent is limited to that for very good and well researched reasons (medical, business), as we may expect from a partner like JnJ. It is this focus that adds to its strength.

Dogonenuts
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Re: (08-02-2018) - Janssen BioTech applies for global patent for combo treatment for hematologic cancers, incl imetelsta

Post by Dogonenuts » Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:52 pm

Fish, I am not averse to the horse pushing the cart every now and then!


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