IL2RG protein, encoded by tL2RG complementary DNA. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Protein_IL2RG_PDB_2b5i.png)

As reported in the 18 April issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, TN) and their colleagues have used gene therapy to restore immune function to eight infants with newly diagnosed X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1).

SCID-X1 is sometimes called “bubble-boy disease”, because of the case of a boy born in 1971 with SCID-X1, who had to be isolated in a plastic bubble while awaiting a bone-marrow transplant.

SCID-X1 is a rare X-linked genetic disease caused by a mutation in the L2RG gene. This gene encodes the interleukin-2 receptor subunit gamma (IL-2RG), which is common to the receptor complexes for at least six different interleukin receptors, including IL-2 and IL-4. Individuals with SCID-X1 produce very few T and NK (natural killer) cells, and are thus severely immunodeficient. As a result, they are very susceptible to infections, and typically die before age 2 if not isolated or treated.

Although SCID-X1 is a rare disease, it is the most common form of severe combined immunodeficiency. It probably affects at least 1 in 50,000 to 100,000 newborns.

SCID-X1 can sometimes be cured by a bone-marrow transplant from a matched sibling donor. However, fewer than 20% of SCID-X1 patients have such an available donor.

A previous attempt to apply gene therapy to treatment of SCID-X1, in the early 2000s, utilized a Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMuLV) gammaretrovirus as a vector. This resulted in a high level of leukemia induction, as discussed in a previous article on this blog. So this approach had to be abandoned. Instead, researchers have developed lentiviral vectors, which appear to have a lower risk of leukemogenesis than gammaretroviral vectors. We discussed the development and use of lentiviral vectors in our November 2015 book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization, published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute.

The new experimental gene therapy for SCID-X1 utilized a lentiviral vector carrying IL2RG complementary DNA.  This was used to transfect patient-derived bone-marrow stem cells. The transfected stem cells were infused back into eight infants with newly diagnosed SCID-X1after low-exposure, targeted busulfan conditioning. (“Conditioning”, for example via a myelosuppressive chemotherapy like busulfan given prior to stem-cell transplantation, is designed to make room for transplanted blood stem cells to grow.

The eight infants were studied for a median of 16.4 months, and experienced no unexpected side effects. In seven of the infants, the numbers of T cells and NK cells normalized by 3 to 4 months after infusion. The vector was present in T cells, B cells, NK cells, myeloid cells, and bone marrow progenitors in these seven subjects. The eighth subject initially had an insufficient T-cell count. However, a boost of gene-corrected cells without busulfan conditioning resulted in T-cell normalization. Previous infections were cleared in all infants, and all continued to grow normally. The subjects also showed other signs of immune system normalization, including vaccine response in three of the infants.

The researchers concluded that the IL2RG-lentiviral vector gene therapy combined with low-exposure, targeted busulfan conditioning in infants with newly diagnosed SCID-X1 showed low-grade acute toxic effects, and resulted in engraftment of transduced cells, reconstitution of functional T cells and B cells, and normalization of NK-cell counts during a median follow-up of 16 months. Children treated with this gene therapy should therefore be protected against common ailments by their reconstituted immune systems. However, they will still need to be monitored long-term to determine if the treatment is durable and free of side effects over the long term.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The post Gene therapy restores immune function to infants with SCID-X1 (X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency) appeared first on Haberman Associates.

Adeno-associated virus. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adeno-associated_virus_serotype_AAV2.jpg

In recent weeks, buyouts of gene therapy companies by Big Pharmas or Big Biotechs—as well as other major gene therapy deals—have been making the news. Specifically, on February 25, 2019, leading gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics (Philadelphia, PA) announced that it had entered into a merger agreement with Roche. Under this agreement, Roche will fully acquire Spark for $4.3 billion.

Roche will keep Spark as a independent entity, similar to Roche’s Genentech. This should enable the type of innovation that has been demonstrated by Spark since its founding in 2013.

Meanwhile, Biogen is buying gene therapy company Nightstar Therapeutics (London, UK) for $800 million in order to gain access to its suite of gene therapies for rare retinal diseases. According to “Endpoints News”, the Biogen/Nightstar deal is the result of a bidding war for Nighrstar by Biogen and three other (unnamed) companies.

And Johnson & Johnson has signed a deal with MeiraGTX (London and New York) for rights to its experimental gene therapies for rare retinal diseases. The two companies also will collaborate on improving gene therapy manufacturing. J&J paid Meira $100 million in cash upfront, and Meira could get up to $340 million in additional downstream payments plus royalties on sales if its products reach the market. J&J will be paying for clinical development of the therapies.

Our previous discussions of Spark and Nightstar

We discussed Spark and Nightstar and their gene therapy programs in our 2015 book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization. We also updated our discussion of Spark’s lead ophthalmological gene therapy product Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl) (formerly known as SPK-RPE65), in our December 21, 2017 article on this blog.

As we discussed in these publications, Spark’s Luxturna is a one-time gene therapy designed to treat patients with an inherited retinal disease (IRD) caused by mutations in both copies of the RPE65 (retinal pigment epithelium-specific 65 kDa protein) gene. It consists of a version of the human RPE65 gene delivered via an adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) viral vector, and is administered via subretinal injection. Luxturna is the first FDA-approved gene therapy for a genetic disease, the first FDA-approved pharmacologic treatment for an IRD, and the first AAV-vector gene therapy approved in the USA.

Nightstar is clinical stage company whose initial focus is treatment of the IRD choroideremia (CHM). CHM is an X-linked genetic disease caused by mutations in the X-CHM gene. These mutations interfere with the production of Rab escort protein-1 (REP1). REP1 is involved in intracellular protein trafficking, and the elimination of waste products from retinal cells.

Nightstar’s lead product is NSR-REP1 (formerly known as AAV2-REP1). This gene therapy consists of an AAV2 vector containing recombinant human complementary DNA, (cDNA), that is designed to produce REP1 inside the eye. NSR-REP1 is currently in a Phase 3 registrational clinical trial, known as the STAR trial. It is thus the most clinically advanced candidate for choroideremia in the world.

In addition to discussing gene therapies under development (including the above-mentioned Spark and Nightstar programs, as well as many others), our 2015 gene therapy report also discusses development and use of gene therapy vectors, especially AAV. It thus continues to be a valuable reference for understanding the gene therapy field.

MeiraGTX

MeiraGTX focuses on AAV-based gene therapies. Its five programs in clinical development include three ophthalmological therapies, as well as gene therapies for a salivary gland condition, and for Parkinson’s disease. The company’s most advanced programs are in Phase 1/2 clinical development, and include treatments for achromatopsia and X-linked retinitis pigmentosa.

Spark is also developing gene therapies for hemophilia

As discussed in a February 23, 2019 “Endpoints News” article on the Roche/Spark merger, Roche’s interest in Spark is not only because of its leadership position in ophthalmological gene therapies, but also because of its broad product portfolio. Notably, among Spark’s product candidates is SPK-8011, one of the leading clinical-stage gene therapies for hemophilia A. SPK-8011 is a novel AAV vector containing a codon-optimized human factor VIII gene under the control of a liver-specific promoter. As the result of promising Phase 2 data, SPK-8011 is now in a lead-in study (NCT03876301) for phase 3 clinical trials. Also in a lead-in study for Phase 3 trials (sponsored by Spark’s partner for this therapy, Pfizer) is Spark’s hemophilia B candidate, fidanacogene elaparvovec (SPK-9001).

The hemophilia gene therapy field is highly competitive. Other companies with clinical-stage hemophilia gene therapies include BioMarin, uniQure, and Sangamo/Pfizer.

Roche’s acquisition of Spark’s SPK-8001 may enable Roche/Genentech to strengthen its leading competitive position in the hemophilia A market. Roche received FDA approval for its blockbuster prophylactic Hemlibra for hemophilia A without factor VIII inhibitors in October 2018.

Pfizer enters the gene-therapy buyout arena

In late-breaking (March 20, 2019) news, Pfizer has taken an exclusive option to acquire Vivet Therapeutics (Paris, France).

Vivet focuses on the development of gene therapies for inherited liver diseases with high unmet medical need. Under the new agreement, Pfizer has acquired 15% of Vivet’s equity, and an exclusive option to acquire all outstanding shares. Initially, the two companies will collaborate on the development of Vivet’s VTX-801, a preclinical-stage gene therapy for Wilson disease.

Wilson disease is a rare and potentially life-threatening liver disorder involving impaired copper transport, resulting in severe copper poisoning. The Wilson’s disease mutation disables the excretion pathway for copper via the bile. This results in excess copper accumulation in the liver and other organs, including the central nervous system. Untreated, Wilson disease results in severe copper toxicity, which can be fatal. It can only be cured by liver transplantation. Existing therapies for Wilson disease are of low efficacy and/or result in significant side effects.

VTX-801, like other therapies discussed in this article, is an AAV-based gene therapy. It is Vivet’s first gene therapy, and the most advanced in development.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pfizer paid approximately €45 million (US$51 million) upon signing and may pay up to €560 million (US$635.8 million) in milestone payments. Pfizer also has an option to acquire 100% of Vivet, based on the results of a Phase 1/2 clinical trial for VTX-801. Pfizer senior executive Monika Vnuk, M.D., Vice President, Worldwide Business Development, is also joining Vivet’s Board of Directors.

Vivet’s earlier-stage preclinical liver-directed gene therapies include a program for progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC) for bile excretion defects and in citrullinemia for defects in the urea cycle.

The Pfizer/Vivet agreement is yet another example of the recent Large Pharma/Biotech enthusiasm for buying up small gene-therapy companies.

Concerns about cost and patient selection for “one and done” gene therapies

As we discussed in our December 21, 2017 article on this blog, Luxturna, as the first FDA-approved gene therapy for an inherited disease, is expected to be a one-time (“one and done”) therapy for its targeted condition. It is expensive, priced at $850,000 ($425,000 per eye affected by an RPE65 gene mutation). This made Luxturna the highest priced therapy in the U.S. to date. Other “one and done” gene therapies are also expected to be expensive. Pricing and related issues with “one and done” gene therapies thus affect the prospects for gene therapy companies and for larger companies that are planning to acquire or partner with them.

In our December 21, 2017 article, we discussed payer programs designed to enable patient access to treatment with Luxturna. These include an outcomes-based rebate plan with a long-term durability measure, and a proposal under which payments for Luxturna would be made over time. Such programs are designed to reduce risk and financial burden for payers and treatment centers. As we discussed, pricing and payer programs that become established for Luxturna may have a wide impact on the entire gene therapy field.

A March 5, 2019 article on gene therapy by Jeremy Schafer, PharmD, MBA of Precision for Value was published in Clinical Leader. This article focused on designing gene therapy clinical trials to meet the concerns of payers and health systems.

At the recent annual meeting of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, the results of a survey that included the perceptions of gene therapy among health plans and health system stakeholders were presented. Among these respondents, 35% stated that their primary concern with gene therapy was “selecting appropriate patients.” Another 30% named “the potential need for retreatment” as their main concern. The major concern of 5% of respondents was that patients treated with gene therapy would still need conventional treatment for their condition. A total of 88 percent of respondents felt that information on appropriate patient selection as well as durability of response would be extremely valuable. Another 60 percent would like to have an economic model on the long-term value of the gene therapy.

Dr. Schafer’s article discussed how clinical trial design might help address these concerns. For example, gene therapy clinical trials might include a long-term follow-up plan to capture data on an ongoing basis. This might help address the question as to whether a gene therapy is truly “one and done”. Ongoing data from these trials might be shared in peer-reviewed publications. The long-term data might be used in economic models by health plans.

In terms of identifying appropriate patients for gene therapies, clinical trial design might include clearly-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria, based on good scientific rationales. Preplanned subgroup analyses might show which groups respond well or not so well to a gene therapy. Clinical trials could also be designed to determine whether and to what extent gene-therapy patients will still need ongoing therapy with conventional drugs.

All these issues in structuring payer programs and in clinical trials designed to meet the concerns of payers and health plans (and of partner and acquiring companies) may enable the development and acceptance of gene therapies as this field moves beyond the release of the first few products.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

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Interface of retinal pigment epithelium and photoreceptor cells. Source: NIH Open-i

As we discussed in our December 17, 2015 article on this blog, Spark Therapeutics’ (Philadelphia, PA) SPK-RPE65 had achieved positive Phase 3 results at that time. It was expected to reach the U.S. market in 2017.

As announced by Spark in a press release, SPK-RPE65, now known as Luxturna (voretigene neparvovec-rzyl), was approved by the FDA on Dec. 19, 2017. This was ahead of the FDA’s PDUFA date for the therapy (i.e., the deadline for action by the FDA) in mid-January 2018.

Luxturna is a one-time gene therapy designed to treat patients with an inherited retinal disease (IRD) caused by mutations in both copies of the RPE65 (retinal pigment epithelium-specific 65 kDa protein) gene who have sufficient viable retinal cells as determined by their treating physicians. Luxturna consists of a version of the human RPE65 gene delivered via an adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) viral vector. It is administered via subretinal injection.

As outlined in the Spark December 19, 2017 press release, Luxturna is first FDA-approved gene therapy for a genetic disease, the first FDA-approved pharmacologic treatment for an inherited retinal disease (IRD), and first adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector gene therapy approved in the United States. However, two gene therapies, uniQure/Chiesi’s Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec) (an expensive money-losing therapy that has only been used once) and GlaxoSmithKline’s Strimvelis, were approved in Europe prior to the FDA approval of Luxturna. Moreover, the CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor  T-cell) cellular immunotherapies Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) (Novartis) and Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) (Gilead/Kite), which are ex vivo gene therapies, were approved in 2017—prior to the approval of Luxturna. Thus although Luxturna is a pioneering gene therapy that represents a number of “firsts”, it is only one of several of the first gene therapies that have reached regulatory approval in recent years.

Pricing and patient access issues with Luxturna

On January 3, 2018, Spark announced that it has set an $850,000 wholesale acquisition cost for Luxturna — $425,000 per eye affected by an RPE65 gene mutation. This makes Luxturna—which is intended as a one-time treatment—the highest priced therapy in the U.S. to date. Some 2,000 patients (fewer than 20 new patients per year) may be eligible for treatment with Luxturna, provided that Spark can persuade payers to cover the treatment.

Also on January 3, 2018, Spark announced a set of three payer programs designed to enable patient access to treatment with Luxturna. These include “an outcomes-based rebate arrangement with a long-term durability measure, an innovative contracting model and a proposal to CMS [The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] under which payments for Luxturna would be made over time.” Spark has reached agreement in principle with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care to make Luxturna available under the outcomes-based rebate program, and under the contracting model that is designed to reduce risk and financial burden for payers and treatment centers. Spark has also reached an agreement in principle with affiliates of Express Scripts to adopt the innovative contracting model.

Spark’s proposal to CMS is based on enabling the company to offer payers the option to spread payment over multiple years, as well as greater rebates tied to clinical outcomes.

As pointed out by John Carroll of Endpoints News, pricing and payer programs that become established for Luxturna may have a wide impact on the whole gene therapy field, in particular gene therapies for hemophilia. As we discussed in our February 2, 2016 blog article, several companies—including Spark—are developing one-time gene therapies for hemophilias A and B. Hemophilia could prove to be the most competitive area of gene therapy in the near future.

Our gene therapy report

Our book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization, contains extensive information on the development of improved gene therapy vectors (especially including AAV vectors). It also contains detailed information on SPK-RPE65/Luxturna and its mechanism of action, as well as on other gene therapies in clinical development (such as those for hemophilia). In addition, it contains information on leading gene therapy companies including Spark. It is an invaluable resource for understanding clinical development of gene therapies, and the academic groups and companies that are carrying out this development.

To order our report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization, please go to the Insight Pharma Reports website.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The post FDA approves Spark Therapeutics’ retinal disease gene therapy Luxturna, a month ahead of schedule appeared first on Haberman Associates.

Bromodomain. A chromatin “reader” that is a target of PPI drug development. Source: WillowW at the English language Wikipedia.

Allan B. Haberman, Ph.D. was one of about 25 experts from pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and consulting firms who attended Aptuit’s  one-day think-tank event, ”Improving Candidate Selection: Translating Molecules into Medicines”. This was the third and final such networking and discussion symposium, which was held in downtown Boston, on December 4, 2017. The previous two events in this series had been held in San Francisco (18th & 19th Sept 2017) and in Hertfordshire, UK (22nd & 23rd Oct 2017). The Boston discussion session was preceded by a relaxed networking dinner on the evening of the 3rd.

Attendees and presenters at the Boston meeting were from Shire, Celgene, Forma Therapeutics, Roche, Amgen, Novartis, the Broad Institute, Warp Drive Bio, Mass General Hospital, EnBiotix, Yumanity, and Ra Pharma—among others—as well as from Aptuit and its parent company Evotec.

The focus of the meeting was on improving drug candidate selection in order to improve development success. Only about 10% of drug candidates make their way from first-in-humans trials to regulatory approval. The greatest amount of attrition occurs in Phase 2. Approximately half of candidates fail at that stage, mainly due to lack of efficacy.

One of the key issues discussed in the symposium was the role of the Lipinski Rule of Five—a set of physico-chemical properties that determine the “drug-likeness” of a clinical candidate; i.e., whether a compound is likely to be an orally active drug in humans. Some participants stated that these guidelines had been interpreted too rigidly, and have excluded many potentially good drugs from further development. They stated that the Lipinski rules are only guidelines, and do not replace thinking. (For a similar point of view, see Paul Leeson’s 2012 News and Views article in Nature.) For example, researchers should measure physical properties empirically, rather than inferring them.

The Lipinski rules also exclude whole classes of drug candidates—such as natural products and macrocyclic compounds—from consideration. Before the era of combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening, natural products were the mainstay of drug discovery and development.

The Haberman Associates website contains reports, articles, and links to reports that are useful in understanding the issues discussed in the Aptuit symposia. Links to most of these publications can be found on our Publications page. Notably, there is a 2009 report entitled Approaches to Reducing Phase II Attrition, which is available from Insight Pharma Reports. There is also a 2009 article (available on our website at no cost) based on that report, entitled “Overcoming Phase II Attrition Problem.”

Drug attrition numbers have not changed since our 2009 publications. However even back in 2009, pharmaceutical company researchers attributed high attrition rates due to lack of efficacy to companies’ addressing more complex diseases, with the need to discover and develop drugs that have novel mechanisms of action and/or address unprecedented targets. At the December 4 Aptiut symposium, participants similarly attributed high attrition rates to researchers’ tackling new classes of drugs. These included drug classes whose development involves working with premature technologies—e.g., protein-protein interactions (PPIs), gene therapy, RNAi, CAR-T therapies, cancer vaccines, , and combination immuno-oncology therapies.

Working on development of drugs based on premature technologies involves development of enabling technologies that will allow researchers to “move up the technology development curve” and thus to achieve increasing success in drug development. R&D in some of these fields—notably development of checkpoint inhibitors for use in immuno-oncology—has been moving up the technology curve, resulting in notable successes.

Although attrition rates have not changed since 2009, drug developers have been working with increasingly newer classes of drugs. Attrition thus continues to be a moving target.

Among the publications available on our website is our 2012 report—Advances in the Discovery of Protein-Protein Interaction Modulators. As the result of corporate restructuring, this report has not be available anywhere in recent years. However, with the permission of the publisher, Datamonitor Healthcare (a division of Informa), we are now hosting it on our website.

Aptuit’s “Translating molecules into medicines” symposia and improving drug discovery and development

The purpose of Aptuit’s symposia was “to discuss and learn from the experiences of those involved in working at the interface of discovery and development. These meetings were designed to give attendees the chance to build meaningful relationships, challenge their understanding of certain subjects and learn from leading members of their peer group in a non-commercialized setting.”

The organizers of the symposia ask whether “having the flexibility to think beyond established rules and adopting more collaborative development strategies will be just as important as the innovative science and technologies for drug discovery and development.” We at Haberman Associates look forward to assisting you in your efforts to move your drug discovery and development programs forward.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The post ”Improving Candidate Selection: Translating Molecules into Medicines.” appeared first on Haberman Associates.

Adenosine Deaminase

Our recent book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization was published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute in November 2015. As indicated by its title, the report focuses on clinical-stage gene therapy programs that are aimed at commercialization, and the companies that are carrying out these programs.

Until recently, gene therapy was thought of as a scientifically-premature field with little prospect of near-term commercialization. However, as outlined in our report, numerous companies have been pursuing clinical programs aimed at regulatory approval and commercialization. These efforts have attracted the interest of investors and of large pharma and biotech companies. As a result, several gene therapy specialty companies have gone public, and some companies in this sector have attracted large pharma or biotech partnerships.

A key question addressed in our report is whether any gene therapies might be expected to reach the U.S. and/or European markets in the near term. In the last chapter (Chapter 9) of the report, we included a table (Table 9.1) of eight gene therapy products that we deemed to be likely to reach the market before 2020.

One of these products, uniQure/Chiesi’s Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec), a treatment for the ultra-rare condition lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD), was approved in Europe in 2012. It is thus the “first commercially available gene therapy” in a regulated market. However, uniQure has dropped plans to seek FDA approval for Glybera.

As we discussed in our December 17, 2015 article on this blog, another product listed in Table 9.1, Spark Therapeutics’ SPK-RPE65, is expected to reach the U.S. market by 2017. SPK-RPE65 is a gene therapy for the rare retinal diseases Leber congenital amaurosis and retinitis pigmentosa type 20. As of March 9, 2016, Spark is preparing to file a Biologics License Application (BLA) for SPK-RPE65 in the second half of 2016. SPK-RPE65 may be the first gene therapy approved in the U.S. Spark also plans to file a marketing authorization application (MAA) in Europe in early 2017.

Now comes an announcement of the impending European marketing of a third product listed in Table 9.1, GlaxoSmithKline/San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (TIGET)’s GSK2696273, now called Strimvelis. On April 1, 2016, the The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended the approval of Strimvelis in Europe, for the treatment of children with ADA severe combined immune deficiency (ADA-SCID) for whom no matching bone marrow donor is available. ADA-SCID is a type of SCID caused by mutations in the gene for adenosine deaminase (ADA).

Approximately 15 children per year are born in Europe with ADA-SCID, which leaves them unable to make certain white blood cell that are involved in the immune system. ADA-SCID is an autosomal recessive condition that accounts for about 15% of cases of SCID. ADA deficiency results in the intracellular buildup of toxic metabolites that are especially deleterious to the highly metabolically active T and B cells. These cells thus fail to mature, resulting in life-threatening immune deficiency. Children with ADA-SCID rarely survive beyond two years unless their immune function is rescued via bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor. Thus Strimvelis is indicated for children for whom no compatible donor is available.

As we discussed in our report, the development of therapies for ADA-SCID goes back to the earliest days of gene therapy, in 1990. Interestingly, Strimvelis (GSK2696273) is based on a Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMuLV) gammaretrovirus vector carrying a functional gene for ADA. In other applications (for example, gene therapy for another type of SCID called SCID-X1), the use of MoMuLV vectors resulted in a high level of leukemia induction. As a result, researchers have developed other types of retroviral vectors (such as those based on  lentiviruses) that do not have this issue. Nevertheless, Strimvelis Mo-MuLV-ADA gene therapy has been show to be safe over 13 years of clinical testing, with no leukemia induction. As discussed in our report, researchers hypothesize that ADA deficiency may create an unfavorable environment for leukemogenesis.

Delivery of Strimvelis requires the isolation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from each patient, followed by ex vivo infection of the cells with the MoMuLV-ADA construct. The transformed cells are then infused into the patient, resulting in restoration of a functional immune system.

With the EMA recommendation of approval for Strimvelis, it is expected that the therapy will be approved by the European Commission approval in July 2016.

Strimvelis is the result of a 2010 partnership between GSK and Italy’s San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy (TIGET), and the biotechnology company MolMed, which is based at TIGET in Milan. MolMed is currently the only approved site in the world for production of and ex vivo therapy with Strimvelis. However, GSK is looking into ways of expanding the numbers of sites that will be capable of and approved for administration of the therapy. GSK’s plans will include seeking FDA approval for expansion into the U.S. market.

Moreover, as discussed in our report, under the GSK/TIGET agreement,  GSK has exclusive options to develop six further applications of ex vivo stem cell therapy, using gene transfer technology developed at TIGET. GSK has already exercised its option to develop two further programs in two other rare diseases. Both are currently in clinical trials. Because of the issue of leukemogenesis with most gammaretrovirus-based gene therapies, these other gene therapy products are based on the use of lentiviral vectors.

Given the tiny size of the market for each of these therapies, pricing is an important—and tricky—issue. For example, treatment with UniQure’s Glybera, as of 2014, cost $1 million. As of now, GSK is not putting a price on Stremvelis, but reportedly the therapy will cost “very significantly less than $1 million” if and when it is approved.

Conclusions

The success of researchers and companies in moving three of the eight gene therapies listed in Table 9.1 toward regulatory approval suggests that gene therapy will attain at least some degree of near term commercial success. However, Glybera and Strimvelis are for ultra-rare diseases, and are thus not expected to command large markets.

However, as discussed in our previous blog article, SPK-RPE65 may achieve peak sales ranging from $350 million to $900 million. And as discussed in our report, some of the remaining therapies listed in Table 9.1, especially those involved in treatment of blood diseases or cancer, may achieve sales in the billions of dollars. Thus, depending on the timing and success of clinical trials and regulatory submissions of these therapies, gene therapy may demonstrate a degree of near-term commercial success that few thought was possible just five years ago.

Meanwhile, even therapies that address rare or ultra-rare diseases will be expected to save the lives or the sight of patients who receive these products.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

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Tsarevich Alexei of Russia

The boy pictured above is Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia, who lived between 1904 and 1918, and was the heir to the throne of Imperial Russia. He is arguably the most famous hemophiliac in history.

Alexei suffered from hemophilia B, a form of hemophilia that was passed from Queen Victoria of Britain through two of her five daughters to the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia. He inherited the disease—which is X-linked and recessive—from his mother, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

During Alexei’s lifetime, there was no good treatment for hemophilia. So Empress Alexandra turned to the charlatan Grigori Rasputin, a supposed “holy man” whom she thought had the power to heal the boy. The relationship between the Empress and Rasputin, and the disastrous rule by the two during September 1915—February 1917, led to the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the eventual rise of Bolshevism. In July 1918, the Bolsheviks murdered Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family, including Tsarevich Alexei, who was one month shy of his 14th birthday.

Current treatments for hemophilia

In 2016, there are much better approved therapies for hemophilia than in Alexei’s day. Hemophilias include hemophilia A and B. Both are X-linked recessive disorders, which thus affect mainly males. Hemophilia A involves a deficiency in factor VIII (FVIII),  and hemophilia B involves a deficiency in factor IX (FIX). Both of these are clotting factors made in the liver. Hemophilia occurs in approximately one in 5,000 live births, and hemophilia A is four times as common as hemophilia B.

Management of hemophilia—from the early 1990s to today—is based on the use of recombinant FVIII or recombinant FIX, for the treatment of hemophilia A and B, respectively. Examples of these products include Baxalta’s Advate and Pfizer’s Xyntha (both recombinant FVIII products), and Pfizer’s BeneFix and Biogen’s Alprolix (both recombinant FIX products). (Baxalta was spun off from Baxter International in July 2015, and then acquired by Shire in January 2016.)

To avoid joint damage and other complications, patients with severe hemophilia need regular infusions, lasting 30 minutes or more, of relatively short-acting and expensive recombinant clotting factors. The cost of these products per patient could total more than $300,000 in 2014.

In recent decades, clotting factor replacement therapy has reduced the morbidity and mortality of hemophilia. However, compared with individuals with normal coagulation, deaths still occur at higher rates due to bleeding episodes. Prophylactic therapy via regular intravenous infusions of factor two to three times per week is now the standard of care for children and increasingly for adults, especially for patients with severe hemophilia. With the expense of current therapies, and the need for frequent infusions, compliance is difficult. Moreover, convenient access to peripheral veins is often a problem. Many children require use of central venous access devices, with the risks of infection and thrombosis.

As a result, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have been attempting to develop longer-acting recombinant clotting factor products, with some success. Example of recently-developed products include Biogen/Swedish Orphan Biovitrum’s Alprolix (recombinant factor IX Fc fusion protein, approved by the FDA in March 2014 for treatment of hemophilia B) and Biogen/Swedish Orphan Biovitrum’s Eloctate (recombinant factor VIII Fc fusion protein, approved by the FDA in June 2014 for treatment of hemophilia A). Both of these products are fusion proteins between recombinant clotting factors and Fc immunoglobulin domains. The use of Fc domains is designed to prolong the half-life of the recombinant fusion proteins in the circulation. Other companies that have been active in developing longer-acting recombinant FIX and FVIIII products include Bayer and Novo Nordisk.

The new longer-acting recombinant clotting factors can reduce the frequency of infusion needed for control of a patient’s hemophilia. However, some patients, especially children under 12, may require higher doses or more frequent infusions than most adults.

Gene therapies for hemophilia under development

The ideal therapies for hemophilia A and/or B would be gene therapies. Gene therapies would potentially eliminate the need for lifelong, frequent infusions of clotting factors, with improved quality of life and reduced risk of death due to bleeding episodes.

As discussed in our recently published book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization (published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute), hemophilia A and B have been extensive researched as candidates for gene therapy. This research has included development and use of animal models, development of coagulation assays that can be used in quantitating the results of treatment, and development of actual candidate gene therapies, especially in the case of hemophilia B.

Development of gene therapies for hemophilia B (the disease that afflicted Tsarevich Alexei and other European royals) enjoys the advantage of the relatively small size of the coding region of the gene for FIX. It is approximately 1.4 kB of cDNA (complementary DNA) coding sequence. This allows researchers to insert this coding element into many different gene transfer vectors, especially adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors. (AAV is the most commonly used vector in gene therapy today.) The small size of the FIX coding region also allows for the addition of transcriptional regulatory elements to modulate the expression of an FIX transgene into small vectors such as those based on AAV.

In contrast, FVIII cDNA is over 8kB in size. Thus, it is not as readily accommodated in small gene transfer vectors such as AAV.  Researchers and companies have been employing several strategies to overcome this difficulty. Although R&D efforts aimed at making gene therapy for hemophilia A possible are underway, commercial development of gene therapy for hemophilia B is far ahead of that for hemophilia A.

As discussed in our report, an important factor that favors the use of gene therapy in treatment of hemophilias is that there is a relatively low threshold for success. In a hemophilia patient, If long-term expression of 2-3% of wild-type (or normal) levels of a functional clotting factor (FIX for hemophilia B or FVIII for hemophilia A) could be achieved, then a substantial reduction in the clinical manifestations of the disease could be attained. Expression of over 30 percent of the wild-type level of the clotting factor could restore a patient to phenotypic normality, although higher levels may be required in the case of hemostatic challenge.

Preliminary results of uniQure’s clinical trial of its hemophilia B gene therapy, AMT-060

In our report, we discuss four programs for development of hemophilia B gene therapies that have reached the clinic. All are based on AAV vectors. One of these four therapies, AMT-060, is being developed by uniQure (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). uniQure has the distinction of having developed the first, and currently (as of January 2016) the only, gene therapy product that has received regulatory approval in a regulated market. This is Glybera (alipogene tiparvovec), a treatment for the ultra-rare genetic disease lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD). uniQure’s hemophilia B gene therapy candidate, AMT-060, is being developed in Europe in collaboration with Chiesi (Parma, Italy).

On January 7, 2016 uniQure announced preliminary results from the low-dose cohort of an ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trial (clinical trial number NCT02396342) being conducted in adult hemophilia B patients treated with uniQure’s novel AAV5-FIX gene therapy, AMT-060. At the time of their enrollment in the trial, all five patients in the low-dose cohort had FIX levels of less than 1-2% of normal levels, and required chronic treatment with prophylactic recombinant FIX (rFIX) therapy.

The first two patients out of the five have completed 20 and 12 weeks of follow-up and had FIX expression levels of 5.5% and 4.5% of normal, respectively, as of the cutoff date of December 16th, 2015. The three other patients have been dosed, but had not achieved the full 12 weeks of follow-up at the cutoff date. However, as of January 6, 2016, four of the five patients, including the first two patients enrolled in the study, have been able to fully discontinue prophylactic rFIX. The first patient in the low-dose cohort experienced a mild, transient and asymptomatic elevation of liver transaminase levels in serum at 10 weeks after treatment; this was easily resolved by treatment with prednisolone. No elevated transaminase levels have been observed in the other four patients so far.

As outlined in our report, AMT-060 consists of an AAV5 vector carrying a gene cassette encoding a codon-optimized (i.e., using codons most frequently found in highly expressed eukaryotic genes) wild-type human FIX (hFIX), under the control of a liver-specific promoter. The gene cassette has been exclusively licensed by uniQure from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, Tenn.). It is the same gene cassette that has been successfully tested in published Phase 1 trials. AMT-060 is manufactured using uniQure’s proprietary insect cell based technology. The therapy is administered, without the use of immunosuppressants, through a peripheral vein in one treatment session for approximately 30 minutes. The study includes a low-dose and a high-dose cohort. So far, there have been no issues with pre-existing neutralizing antibodies against AAV5 or with development of inhibitory FIX antibodies.

This early data suggests that AMT-060 is well-tolerated, and is able to successfully transduce the liver, and thus to produce clinically meaningful levels of serum FIX.

uniQure and its collaborators are continuing the study. The investigators intend to present a more complete analysis of the data from the low-dose cohort at a scientific conference in the second quarter of 2016. uniQure also anticipates initiating enrollment of the high-dose cohort in the first quarter of 2016.

The hemophilia gene therapy field will be competitive

Among the clinical-stage hemophilia B programs covered in our report, Spark Therapeutics expects to report initial efficacy data in mid-2016 for its Phase 1/2 clinical trial of SPK-FIX, which it is developing in collaboration with Pfizer. As discussed in our report, only Baxalta has reported early clinical trials for its therapy, AskBio009/BAX335. These results were reported in July 2015. As in many early studies of hemophilia gene therapies, there were issues with neutralizing antibodies that led to decreased FIX expression. Baxalta continues to work to address the observed immune responses, while maintaining target levels of FIX expression. As uniQure continues with its clinical trial of AMT-060 and treats more patients with higher doses, it remains to be seen to what extent immune reactions might affect results with its hemophilia B gene therapy.

The other hemophilia B program discussed in our report is at Dimension Therapeutics. At the time of our report’s publication, Dimension’s first clinical trial was to commence in the second half of 2015. As reported by Dimension, the Phase 1/2 study for its AAVrh10-FIX product DTX101 was actually initiated on January 7, 2016.

Other companies that are entering the hemophilia B or A gene therapy field include Biogen, Sangamo in collaboration with Shire, and Biomarin. Biomarin’s program is in hemophilia A, and all the companies mentioned in this article and in our report that have hemophilia B programs also are developing hemophilia A gene therapies. At least some commentators believe that “hemophilia could prove to be the most competitive gene therapy race to date.”

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

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Steven Rosenberg

On September 6, 2014, we published an article on this blog announcing the publication of our book-length report, Cancer Immunotherapy: Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors, Cancer Vaccines, and Adoptive T-cell Therapies, by Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI).

In that article, we cited the example of the case of a woman with metastatic cholangiocarcinoma (bile-duct cancer), which typically kills the patient in a matter of months. The patient, Melinda Bachini, was treated via adoptive immunotherapy with autologous tumor-infiltrating T cells (TILs) resulting in survival over a period of several years, with a good quality of life.

Our report includes a full discussion of that case, as of the date of the May 2014 publication of a report in Science by Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D. and his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Ms. Bachini’s story was also covered in a May 2014 New York Times article.

Now comes the publication, in Science on December 2015, of an update from the Rosenberg group on their clinical studies of TIL-based immunotherapy of metastatic gastrointestinal cancers. This article discusses the results of TIL treatment of ten patients with a variety of gastrointestinal cancers, including cancers of the bile duct, the colon or rectum, the esophagus, and the pancreas. The case of Ms. Bachini (“patient number 3737”) was included.

Ms. Bachini, a paramedic and a married mother of six children, and a volunteer with the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation, was 41 years old when first diagnosed with cancer. She remains alive today—a five-year survivor—at age 46.

The Foundation produced a video, dated March 13, 2015, in which Ms. Bachini gives her “patient perspective”. This video includes her story “from the beginning”—from diagnosis through surgery and chemotherapy, and continuing with adoptive immunotherapy at the NCI under Dr. Rosenberg. Although her tumors continue to shrink and she remains alive, she still is considered to have “Stage 4” (metastatic) cancer. Ms. Bachini is a remarkable woman.

The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation has also produced an on-demand webinar (dated October 21, 2014) on the adoptive cellular therapy trial in patients with various types of metastatic gastrointestinal cancers, led by Drs. Eric Tran and Steven Rosenberg. Ms. Bachini is also a presenter on that webinar. The December 2015 Science article is an updated version of the results of this trial.

The trial, a Phase 2 clinical study (NCT01174121) remains ongoing, and is recruiting new patients.

The particular focus of Dr. Tran’s and Dr. Rosenberg’s study in TIL treatment of gastrointestinal cancers is whether TILs derived from these tumors include T-cell subpopulations that target specific somatic mutations expressed by the cancers, and whether these subpopulations might be harnessed to successfully treat patients with these cancers. Of the ten patients who were the focus of the December 2015 publication, only Ms. Bachini had a successful treatment. In the case of Ms. Bachini, she received a second infusion of TILs that were enriched for CD4+ T cells that targeted a unique mutation in a protein known as ERBB2IP. It was this second treatment that resulted in the successful knockdown of her tumors, which continues to this day.

Despite the lack of similar successes in the treatment of the other nine patients, the researchers found that TILs from eight of these patients contained CD4+ and/or CD8+ T cells that recognized one to three somatic mutations in the patient’s own tumors. Notably, CD8+ TILs isolated from a colon cancer tumor of one patient (patient number 3995) recognized a mutation in KRAS known as KRAS G12D. This mutation results in an amino acid substitution at position 12 in KRAS, from glycine (G) to aspartic acid (D). KRAS G12D is a driver mutation that is involved in causation of many human cancers.

Although two other patients (numbers 4032 and 4069, with colon and pancreatic cancer, respectively) had tumors that expressed KRAS G12D, the researchers did not detect TILs that recognized the KRAS mutation in these patients. The researchers concluded that KRAS G12D was not immunogenic in these patients. The TILs from patient 3995 were CD8+ T cells that recognized KRAS G12D in the context of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele HLA-C*08:02. [As with all T cells, TILs express T-cell receptors (TCRs) that recognize a specific antigenic peptide bound to a particular major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecule—this is referred to as “MHC restriction”.] The two patients for whom KRAS G12D was not immunogenic did not express the HLA-C*08:02 allele.

The results seen with KRAS G12D-expressing tumor suggest the possibility of constructing genetically-engineered CD8+ T cells that express a TCR that is reactive with the KRAS mutation in the context of the HLA-C*08:02 allele. The KRAS G12D driver mutation is expressed in about 45% of pancreatic adenocarcinomas, 13% of colorectal cancers, and at lower frequencies in other cancers, and the HLA-C*08:02 allele is expressed by approximately 8% and 11% of white and black people, respectively, in the U.S. Thus, in the U.S. alone, thousands of patients per year with metastatic gastrointestinal cancers would potentially be eligible for immunotherapy with this KRASG12D-reactive T cell.

Although only Ms. Bachini (“patient number 3737”) was a long-term survivor, the researchers were able to treat three other patients with enriched populations of TILs targeting predominantly one mutated tumor antigen. Patient 4069 experienced a transient regression of multiple lung metastases of his pancreatic adenocarcinoma, but patients 4007 and 4032 had no objective response. Whereas 23% of circulating T cells at one month after treatment were adoptively transferred mutation-specific TILs in the case of Ms. Bachini, the other three patients treated with enriched populations of mutation-specific TILs showed no or minimal persistence. The researchers concluded that they will need to develop strategies designed to enhance the potency and persistence of adoptively transferred mutation-specific TILs. Nevertheless, the researchers concluded that nearly all patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancers harbor tumor mutation-specific TILs. This finding may serve as the basis for developing personalized adoptive cellular therapies and/or vaccines that can effectively target common epithelial cancers.

Conclusions

Dr. Rosenberg pioneered the study and development of adoptive cellular immunotherapy, beginning in the 1980s. Most studies with TIL-based adoptive immunotherapy have been in advanced melanoma. Adoptive cellular immunotherapy is the most effective approach to inducing complete durable regressions in patients with metastatic melanoma.

As we discussed in our cancer immunotherapy report, melanoma tumors have many more somatic mutations (about 200 nonsynonymous mutations per tumor) than most types of cancer. This appears to be due to the role of a potent immunogen—ultraviolet light—in the pathogenesis of melanoma. The large number of somatic mutations in melanomas results in the infiltration of these tumors by TILs that target the mutations. As discussed in our report, Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues cultured TIL cell lines that addressed specific immunodominant mutations in patients’ melanomas. Treatment with these cell lines in several cases resulted in durable complete remissions of the patients’ cancers.

Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues used the same strategy employed in identification of TIL cell lines that targeted specific mutations in melanomas to carry out the study in gastrointestinal cancers, as discussed in our report. However, the small number of somatic mutations and of endogenous TILs in gastrointestinal cancers and in most other epithelial cancers has made studies in these cancers more difficult than studies in melanoma.

in addition, the susceptibility of melanoma to treatment with checkpoint inhibitors such as the PD-1 blockers pembrolizumab (Merck’s Keytruda) and nivolumab (Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo) correlates with the large number of somatic mutations in this type of cancer. As we discussed in our December 15, 2014 article on this blog, immune checkpoint inhibitors work by reactivating endogenous tumor-infiltrating T cells (TILs). In the case of melanoma, these endogenous TILs target the numerous somatic mutations found in these cancers, and—as suggested by Dr. Rosenberg’s studies with cultured TIL cell lines—those endogenous TILs that target immunodominant mutations can induce durable compete remissions. As discussed in our December 15, 2014 blog article, the three major types of immuno-oncology treatments—immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, and adoptive T-cell therapies, work via related mechanisms.

In 2015, researchers showed that other types of cancers that have numerous somatic mutations are especially susceptible to checkpoint inhibitor treatment. These include, for example, non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) that have mutational signatures that indicate that the cancers were caused by smoking, and cancers that have mutations in genes involved in DNA repair. (Mutations in genes involved in DNA repair pathways result in the generation of numerous additional mutations.)

Moreover, as discussed in our December 15, 2014 blog article, cancer immunotherapy researchers have been expanding the types of tumors that can be treated with checkpoint inhibitors. Genentech/Roche’s PD-L1 inhibitor that was discussed in that article, MPDL3280A, is now called atezolizumab. The clinical trials of atezolizumab discussed in that article and in our report have continued to progress. In a pivotal Phase 2 study in locally advanced or metastatic urothelial bladder cancer (UBC), atezolizumab shrank tumors in 27 percent of people whose disease had medium and high levels of PD-L1 expression and had worsened after initial treatment with platinum chemotherapy. These responses were found to be durable. According to Genentech, these results may represent the first major treatment advance in advanced UBC in nearly 30 years. Atezolizumab also gave positive results in Phase 2 clinical trials in patients with NSCLC that expresses medium to high levels of PD-L1.

Meanwhile, NewLink Genetics (Ames, IA) has entered Phase 3 clinical trials in pancreatic cancer with its HyperAcute cellular immunotherapy vaccine therapy. A Phase 2 trial of the company’s HyperAcute cellular immunotherapy algenpantucel-L in combination with chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy in resected pancreatic cancer (clinical trial number NCT00569387) appears to be promising.

Dr. Rosenberg’s studies of TIL therapies of gastrointestinal cancers represent another approach to moving immuno-oncology treatments beyond melanoma, based on mutation-specific targeting. The types of cancers that form the focus of these studies—gastrointestinal epithelial cancers—have proven difficult to treat. Moreover, several of them are among the most common of cancers. The researchers and patients involved in these and other immuno-oncology studies are heroes, and oncologists appear to be making measured progress against cancers that have been until recently considered untreatable.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The post Can adoptive cellular immunotherapy successfully treat metastatic gastrointestinal cancers? appeared first on Haberman Associates.

Spark! Source: http://bit.ly/1Obw4Nk

As we discussed in our November 16, 2015 article on this blog, Spark Therapeutics (Philadelphia, PA) recently announced positive top-line results from the Phase 3 pivotal trial of SPK-RPE65, a gene therapy for treatment of inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) caused by mutations in the gene for RPE65.  At a later scientific meeting, the company presented data that showed that SPK-RPE65 gave durable improvements in vision over a three-year period.

SPK-RPE65 is the most advanced gene therapy in development for retinal disease of any company, as discussed in our November 2015 book-length gene therapy report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization, published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute. Our report includes detailed discussions of SPK-RPE65, Spark Therapeutics, and other companies developing gene therapies for ophthalmologic diseases.

Now comes a recent online article in “Seeking Alpha” by ONeil Trader, which discusses Spark’s commercialization plans for SPK-RPE65, based on the positive Phase 3 results. Spark is planning to file a Biologics License Application (BLA) for SPK-RPE65 in 2016, as also stated on the company’s website. According to the “Seeking Alpha” article, SPK-RPE65 should reach the U.S. market in 2017, and should be the first FDA-approved gene therapy product in the United States.

The “Seeking Alpha” article also gives a projected range of peak sales for SPK-RPE65: from $350 million to $900 million. The article also reminds investors (the primary audience of “Seeking Alpha”) that Spark has a rich pipeline beyond SPK-RPE65. We have discussed the two clinical stage products mentioned by “Seeking Alpha”—SPK-CHM for the IRD choroideremia and SPK-FIX for hemophilia B (partnered with Pfizer) in our report. We have also discussed Spark’s first neurodegenerative disease gene therapy, SPK-TPP1 for Batten disease, in the December 7, 2015 article on this blog.

Might other gene therapies reach the U.S. market in 2017?

The “Seeking Alpha” article predicts that SPK-RPE65 will be the first gene therapy to reach the US. market, in 2017. However, there are several other gene therapies discussed in our report that might also reach the U.S. market by 2017, perhaps beating SPK-RPE65 for the honor of being first-to-U.S.-market.

Despite its already being approved in Europe, uniQure’s Glybera, the “first commercially available gene therapy”, will not be the first to reach the U.S. market. That is because uniQure has dropped plans to seek FDA approval for Glybera.

As discussed in our gene therapy report, the products most likely to reach the U.S. market at the same time or before SPK-RPE65 are all CD19-targeting CAR T-cell therapies for treatment of various B-cell leukemias and lymphomas. These products include Novartis/Penn’s CTL019, Juno’s JCAR015, and Kite’s KTE-C19. At least as a “stretch goal”, CTL019 might even reach the U.S. market for treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in 2016. In addition to these products, our report includes discussions of other gene therapies that might reach the U.S. and/or European market before 2020, and achieve revenues equal to or greater than those projected for SPK-RPE65.

Importantly, none of these other products will compete with SPK-RPE65, except for the honor of being “the first gene therapy to reach the U.S. market”. And the prospect of several gene therapy products reaching the U.S. and/or European market before 2020 suggests that gene therapy is moving beyond the “premature technology” stage, and into commercial success.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

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Wayland MA Source: http://bit.ly/1N1TyRk

Russell’s Garden Center, on Route 20, a family-owned business established in 1876, is a unique Wayland MA institution. When you shop at Russell’s and approach the check-out counter with your plants, flowers, or other purchases, you will see a donation box for a rare-disease charity called “Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation”.

This charity is named for Nicholas R. Dainiak, a Bedford MA boy who died on his 11th birthday in 2014, after “a courageous six year battle with Batten’s disease”. The primary mission of the foundation is to raise funds and create partnerships aimed at promoting awareness, providing education, and developing translational research in Batten disease.

One of the events that the Foundation sponsors in order to raise funds and awareness is the John Tanner Memorial 5-K Run and Walk, which this year took place on October 4, 2015 in Wayland. This event memorializes both Nicholas and John Tanner. John Tanner was a competitive runner who devoted all of his races over 5 years to raising awareness about Nicholas and Batten disease. He was also a long-time employee of Russell’s Garden Center—hence the Russell’s and Wayland connection to the Foundation. John Tanner died unexpectedly while running the NYC half marathon in the spring of 2013.

Batten disease

Batten disease is a very rare, fatal, autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder that usually begins in childhood. Juvenile Batten disease is one of a group of disorders known as neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs). NCLs may be caused by one of over 400 different mutations. They affect the nervous system with vision loss, seizures, movement disorders, slow learning, altered thought processes, and cognitive decline.

Although Batten disease was originally used to describe only the juvenile form of NCL the term “Batten disease” is now widely used to refer to all forms of NCL, including adult-onset disease. Juvenile NCL, the most prevalent form of Batten disease, has been linked to mutations in the CLN3 gene. Late infantile NCL has been linked to mutations in NCL2.

Batten disease is a type of lysosomal storage disease. The CLN3 gene codes for a protein called battenin, which is found principally in lysosomes and in endosomes. The protein’s function is currently unknown. The CLN2 gene codes for a lysosomal enzyme called tripeptidyl peptidase 1 (TPP1), which is an acid protease.

Mutations in CLN2, CLN3, and other Batten disease genes result in the accumulation of lipofuscins in the tissues of the body. Lipofuscins are lipoproteins that form autofluorescent ceroid (i.e., waxy) deposits throughout the body of Batten disease patients.  Lipopfuscin deposits can sometimes be detected visually in the back of the eye. As the disease progresses, the deposits in the retina appear more pronounced, and ophthalmologists see circular bands of different shades of pink and orange in the patient’s optic nerve and retina. Ceroid lipofuscins are a hallmark of Batten disease, and appear to cause disease symptoms.

Juvenile Batten disease has an estimated incidence between 0.5 – 8 per 100,000 live births, with an average of 1.2. Despite its rarity, juvenile Batten disease appears to be the most common form of pediatric neurodegenerative disease. In addition to Batten disease patients, there are approximately 440,000 asymptomatic people in the United States who are carriers of juvenile Batten disease who have one copy of a mutated version of the CLN3 gene.

As with other rare diseases, a typical Batten disease patient may visit 8 physicians and receives 2 to 3 misdiagnoses before being correctly diagnosed. This may take many years. In the case of Nicholas, he had several misdiagnoses and mis-treatments over the early course of his disease, from age 4 to age 5. It was a ophthalmologist who finally correctly diagnosed Nicholas with Batten disease.

Relationship between Batten disease and more common neurodegenerative diseases

The written material next to the donation box for “Our Promise to Nicholas” in Russell’s Garden Center claims that study of Batten disease may lead to a greater understanding of such neurodegenerative diseases of aging as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Some of the symptoms and consequences of Batten disease resemble those of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Nevertheless, Batten disease is classified as a lysosomal storage disease, while Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are thought to be caused via other mechanisms.

However, some researchers see common mechanisms in the pathobiology of neurodegenerative lysosomal storage diseases such as Batten and of other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Specifically, these include impairment of autophagy and increase in cytoplasmic protein aggregation. For example, some researchers have found relationships between mutations in the Alzheimer’s disease-related protein presenilin 1 and lysosomal dysfunction.

Since clinical trials of drugs for Alzheimer’s disease have so far been unsuccessful, study of alternative mechanisms for the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s may be useful in developing new ways of addressing drug discovery for this devastating and all-too-common disease.

Discovery and development of gene therapies for Batten disease

The “Our Promise to Nicholas” website has a page entitled “Where your donations go”. According to that Web page, Nicholas’ disease was caused by a splice mutation in CLN2, which blocked production of TPP1. This is the most common mutation in children with the late infantile subtype of Batten Disease.

The same Web page discusses a gene therapy program led by Beverly Davidson, Ph.D. (then at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA), which had been supported by Our Promise To Nicholas Foundation. As of April 2014, Dr. Davidson joined the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). At that time, Dr. Davidson became the director of CHOP’s Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics. She has also continued her research on gene therapy for neurodegenerative diseases, including Batten disease, other neurologic lysosomal storage disorders, Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and others.

While at Iowa, and continuing at CHOP, Dr. Davidson and her colleagues were investigating the use of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors carrying a functional TPP1 gene in treatment of late infantile Batten disease in animal models.

On November 11, 2015, Spark Therapeutics (Philadelphia, PA) announced that its first gene therapy program targeting a central nervous system (CNS) disease will target late infantile Batten disease. In that press release, it also announced that a report published in the 11 November issue of Science Translational Medicine provides preclinical proof of principle for Spark’s gene therapy, known as SPK-TPP1. The preclinical study, in a naturally occurring dog model, was led by Dr. Davidson at CHOP.

The study demonstrated the potential of a one-time administration of SPK-TPP1 to delay onset and progression of Batten disease in the dog model. SPK-TPP1 consists of Spark’s AAV2 vector carrying a functional TPP1 gene. The preclinical study showed that one-time administration of SPK-TPP1 to the ependymal cells of the brain ventricular system produced steady expression of the enzyme in the cerebrospinal fluid, and throughout the CNS. It also resulted in delayed onset of clinical symptoms and disease progression, protection from cognitive decline and extension of lifespan, as compared to untreated controls.

Based on these results, Spark plans to initiate Investigational New Drug Application (IND)-enabling studies in 2015.

Our November 2015 book-length report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization (published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute), contains a discussion of gene therapy vectors, including AAV. It also highlights Spark Therapeutics as a leader in AAV-based gene therapy and in gene-therapy treatments for retinal diseases. Spark’s technology platform had been developed over a 20-year period at CHOP.

As also discussed in our November 16, 2015 article on this blog, Spark has recently completed a Phase 3 pivotal trial of SPK-RPE65, a gene therapy for treatment of inherited retinal diseases (IRDs) caused by mutations in the gene for RPE65. SPK-TPP1 uses the same AAV2 vector as SPK-RPE65, and will utilize the same manufacturing processes. AAV2 has a neural tropism. Since the retina is an extension of the brain, researchers can utilize AAV2 vectors to target both tissues.

Conclusions

On the Web page “Where your donations go”, Dr. Davidson says that funding from “family foundations such as Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation” has provided much needed support. Their donations have allowed cutting-edge research to be conducted in a timely manner, rather than months or years after researchers develop the ideas for these studies. Moreover, interacting with Batten disease families is especially motivating, and the advisory role of scientists who review grant proposals for family foundations is valuable as well.

Our Promise to Nicholas is far from the only Batten disease “family foundation”. Other families of patients with juvenile and adult-onset Batten disease have formed foundations to fund research and awareness. For example, there are Nathan’s Battle Foundation and the Batten Disease Support and Research Association (BDSRA). Our Promise to Nicholas participated in the 2015 BDSRA Annual Conference, and worked together with other Batten disease family foundations to provide nursing care and childcare for the event. Thus when Dr. Davidson refers to “family foundations”, she is referring to several such organizations.

Dr. Davidson also pointed out that grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has dramatically decreased in recent years due to Federal budget constraints. This has especially affected research on rare diseases such as Batten disease. Dr. Davidson believes that “family foundation support is being increasingly relied upon to fill a growing void in NIH funding”.

Funding of Dr. Davidson’s research by Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation and other family foundations has resulted in a gene therapy R&D program that has been adopted by one of the world’s leading gene therapy companies, Spark Therapeutics. Spark (in collaboration with Dr. Davidson’s group at CHOP) is taking its Batten disease program into the clinic, and intends to commercialize SPK-TPP1. Spark is also using its Batten disease program as the basis for its larger neurodegenerative disease program. Thus Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation has much to be proud of.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

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Baby_Face Source: http://bit.ly/1OjMOyo

In November 2015, the use of gene editing technology to treat an 11-month-old child with leukemia was reported in news articles in Nature and in Science. Because of the human-interest value of this story, it was also reported in Time magazine and in the New York Times.

Data from this first-in-humans clinical use of the therapy will be presented at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL in early December 2015.

The young patient was treated with a complex cellular immunotherapy regimen developed by Cellectis (Paris, France and New York, NY). Cellectis’ platform involves production of allogeneic (rather than autologous) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells to create an “off-the-shelf solution” to cellular immunotherapy for cancer, potentially simplifying manufacturing and standardization of therapies.

We have discussed CAR T-cell therapies on this blog, and—in more detail—in two book-length reports published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI). These are our 2014 Cancer Immunotherapy report, and our new November 2015 report, Gene Therapy: Moving Toward Commercialization.

CAR T-cell therapies directed against the B-cell antigen CD19, being developed by Novartis/University of Pennsylvania, Juno Therapeutics, and Kite Pharma, have demonstrated impressive clinical results against B-cell leukemias and lymphomas. However, in order to avoid immune incompatibility, CAR T-cell must be constructed and manufactured using autologous T-cells derived from the patient to be treated. This is an expensive and laborious process. Hence the rationale for allogeneic CAR T-cell therapy.

Cellectis uses gene editing in construction of its allogeneic CAR T-cells. Specifically, the company first modifies T-cells from healthy donors with an anti-CD19 CAR gene construct, similar to the methods used by other companies that are developing anti-CD19 CAR cellular immunotherapies. Cellectis then uses gene editing based on transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENS) to disrupt expression of the T-cells’ TCR (T-cell receptor) genes. It is the TCRs of the transplanted T cells that recognize the patient’s own cells as foreign, and thus attack them. Cellectis also uses TALENS gene editing to disrupt expression of a gene for another cell-surface protein, CD52. CD52 is present on mature lymphocytes, and is the target of the monoclonal antibody drug alemtuzumab (Genzyme’s Lemtrada). Researchers can then use alemtuzumab to prevent host-mediated rejection of the HLA mismatched CAR19 T cells. Cellectis’ “Talen engineered universal CAR19 T cells” can thus in principle be used to treat any patient with B-ALL (B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia), instead of autologous anti-CD19 CAR T-cells.

The treatment of the young patient, Layla Richards of London, was on a compassionate use basis. She had refractory relapsed B-ALL, and was expected to die shortly. Meanwhile, Cellectis had a universal CAR19 (UCART19) cell bank in the same hospital in which Layla was being treated. The cell bank had been characterized in detail, in preparation for submission for regulatory approval and Phase 1 testing.

Prior to administration of the UCART19 cells, the patient received lymphodepleting chemotherapy (including administration of alemtuzumab). After getting the UCART19 cells in June 2015 (near her first birthday), Layla went into remission, and has no trace of leukemia. After about three months she had a bone marrow transplant to help her immune system recover, and is now at home. However the follow-up period since her treatment has only been 5 months. Therefore, Layla’s doctors do not yet know how durable the remission will be. The key question is how long the UCART19 cells can survive in the body and prevent recurrence of leukemia.

Gene editing companies and their technologies discussed in our November 2015 report

Our November 2015 gene therapy report includes a chapter (Chapter 8) that focuses on gene-editing technologies and on companies that are developing therapies based on these technologies. The gene-editing technology that has been getting the most attention from the scientific and financial communities is known as CRISPR/Cas9. The other two technologies discussed in Chapter 8 are TALENS and zinc-finger nucleases (ZFN). The basic principle of these gene-editing technologies is that a “molecular scissors” makes a specific double-strand break in a deleterious DNA sequence. This break is either repaired in such a way as to disrupt the gene by forming deletions or mutations, or—if a suitable donor DNA is provided—the deleterious gene is replaced with a desired, functional gene sequence.

Gene-editing specialty companies discussed in our report based on CRISPR/Cas9 technology include Editas Medicine (Cambridge, MA) (which also utilizes TALENS), Intellia Therapeutics (Cambridge MA), CRISPR Therapeutics (Basel, Switzerland; Stevenage, U.K.; and Cambridge MA), and Caribou Biosciences (Berkeley, CA). Sangamo BioSciences (Richmond, CA), which is also discussed in our report, is a pioneer in ZFN technology.

Despite the predominant focus on CRISPR/Cas9 technology and companies in the biotechnology and venture capital communities, the first clinical studies involving gene editing have used Sangamo’s ZFN technology. These studies are in the field of HIV/AIDS. They involve ex vivo treatment of HIV-infected patients’ T-cells with a specific ZFN-based vector, in order to render the patients resistant to further manifestations of the disease.

Meanwhile, Editas has developed a vector designed to enable the company to move its CRISPR/Cas9 technology into the clinic. Editas’ first clinical program will be a potential treatment for a form of the genetically-driven retinal disease, Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). (This is a different form of LCA than the one being targeted by Spark Therapeutics, which we discussed in our November 16, 2015 article on this blog).

bluebird bio (Cambridge, MA) is also pursuing a gene-editing technology program based on homing endonucleases and MegaTAL enzymes. This research and preclinical-stage program came to bluebird via its 2014 acquisition of Precision Genome Engineering Inc. (Seattle WA).

Cellectis is not the only company that is combining CAR T-cell therapies with gene-editing technology. In May 2015, Editas formed a collaboration with Juno Therapeutics to pursue research programs that combine Editas’ genome editing technologies with Juno’s CAR and TCR T-cell technologies.

Conclusions

Despite the great deal of excitement about gene-editing technologies and companies (especially CRISPR/Cas9) these are early days for development of therapies based on these technologies. Despite the almost miraculous results in the treatment of Layla Richards, it is only one case, and the follow-up period has been short. Nevertheless, this one case may open the way for this therapy to be used in other “desperate situations” where there is no time, or it is not possible, to use a patient’s own T cells. And that a similar technique may be used to treat people with other blood cancers, and eventually people with solid tumors.

For more information on our November 2105 gene therapy report, or to order it, see the CHI Insight Pharma Reports website.

As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to your company, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The post Gene editing technology used to treat infant with leukemia appeared first on Haberman Associates.