• Amgen’s Blincyto has demonstrated a 96% survival rate for those living with standard-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia remaining disease-free for three years when combined with chemotherapy.
• Pfizer’s Ibrance has demonstrated a significant benefit in treating a type of metastatic breast cancer, reducing the risk of progression or death by 26% when combined with standard therapies, offering a new option in a competitive market.
• San Diego’s life sciences sector which provide about $56 billion in economic output, is set to expand with over 3.2 million square feet of new lab space in 2025, adding to the life science biotech boom in California.

Recent News

• Pfizer’s Ibrance scores in double-positive breast cancer
  Fierce Pharma – December 12, 2024
  While under competitive pressure from Novartis and Eli Lilly, Pfizer can tally up a unique trial win for its Ibrance in a niche breast cancer population. Although CDK4/6 inhibitors such as Ibrance are well-established treatments for HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, a phase 3 trial sponsored by the cancer research organization Alliance Foundation Trials has now found that the Pfizer drug can provide benefit in HR-positive, HER2-positive tumors as well.
• FDA clears AngioDynamics’ NanoKnife pulsed field ablation system for prostate cancer
  Fierce Biotech – December 10, 2024
  AngioDynamics has obtained an FDA green light for its NanoKnife prostate cancer ablation system, designed to precisely target and destroy tissue without delivering excess heat and the unintended thermal damage that may come with it. The company’s radiation-free approach is similar to the pulsed field ablation technologies that have helped reshape cardiac ablation procedures for irregular heartbeats in the past year. NanoKnife delivers high-voltage bursts of electrical energy that causes small holes to form in cell membranes. This leads to irreversible electroporation, where the membranes begin to collapse in a method akin to natural cell deaths.
• New treatment may delay cancer in high-risk myeloma
  Medical Xpress – December 10, 2024
  A new treatment is showing promise for people with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM). This precancerous condition can progress to active multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. High-risk SMM carries a higher likelihood of progression. Results from a phase 3 clinical trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society of Hematology meeting, demonstrated that daratumumab, a monoclonal antibody that targets CD38, a protein found on the surface of myeloma cells, significantly reduces the risk of progression to active multiple myeloma and improves overall survival compared to active monitoring. Smoldering multiple myeloma is a condition in which abnormal plasma cells accumulate in the bone marrow but do not display symptoms of active multiple myeloma.
• Researchers identify new therapeutic strategy for fentanyl overdoses
  Medical Xpress – December 10, 2024
  Scientists have revealed that opioid receptors outside the brain play a key role in the hypoventilation caused by fentanyl overdoses, paving the way for better treatments. The study, forthcoming in eLife, offers compelling evidence demonstrating that fentanyl-induced respiratory depression in rodents can be reversed with a drug that acts only on peripheral opioid receptors. eLife’s editors added that these preclinical findings reshape our understanding of opioid-related effects on breathing and oxygen availability and have significant therapeutic implications given that medications currently used to reverse opioid overdose (such as naloxone) produce severe aversive and withdrawal effects via actions within the central nervous system.
• Amgen’s Blincyto keeps 96% of pediatric leukemia patients alive and disease-free in ‘practice changing’ 3-year study
  Fierce Pharma – December 9, 2024
  Ten years after its first FDA approval, Amgen’s Blincyto continues to make inroads in treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Now, the drug has delivered a phase 3 win that further demonstrates its benefits in the most common form of the disease. In newly diagnosed pediatric patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) that fits into the National Cancer Institute’s definition of standard risk, the three-year disease-free survival rate for those treated with Blincyto and chemotherapy was 96% compared with 87.9% for chemotherapy alone, Amgen reported. The result came from a Phase 3 study called AALL1731 conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group.
• San Diego poised for another life sciences and biotech boom in 2025
  ABC 10 San Diego – December 6, 2024
  The sound of construction echoes through Mira Mesa Boulevard in Sorrento Valley all day, as a handful of new life science buildings are near completion. It’s the last phase of what industry experts call a post-pandemic construction “frenzy.” “It still is happening,” says Daniel Maldonado, the Managing Director at Unispace Life Sciences. “Things that started a couple of years ago and are still under construction, are coming up to market.” By the end of 2025, more than a dozen large life sciences buildings and campuses will come online across San Diego County, according to research from JLL, a real estate company that specializes in those types of developments.
• AstraZeneca scores FDA nod for Imfinzi as first immunotherapy for limited-stage small cell lung cancer
  Fierce Pharma – December 5, 2024
  AstraZeneca has picked off another label expansion for its cancer blockbuster Imfinzi (durvalumab) as the FDA has blessed the PD-L1 inhibitor for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC) patients who have not had disease progression after concurrent chemotherapy and radiation treatments. With the nod, Imfinzi becomes the first immunotherapy for LS-SCLC, an aggressive form of the disorder with a survival rate between 15% and 30% after diagnosis. The subtype includes roughly 30% of all SCLC cases. It often recurs and progresses rapidly despite initial response to standard-of-care chemo and radiation treatment.
• Enhanced cardiovascular MRI can predict heart risk in children with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
  Medical Xpress – December 3, 2024
  Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common genetic cardiovascular condition. It is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young people and children, with an annual mortality rate of 1%. However, 10% to 20% of these patients have a significantly higher risk of sudden cardiac death. Recently, a multi-institutional team including Jon Detterich, MD, Principal Investigator in the Heart Institute at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, investigated if adding LGE to current risk assessment models could more effectively predict sudden cardiac death in children. Current models are compiled from patient test scores and echocardiograms.
• GE HealthCare debuts AI-powered, zero-click mammography system
  Fierce Biotech – December 2, 2024
  GE HealthCare has unveiled a new mammography system with artificial-intelligence-powered features that it says are aimed at easing the pressures from a shortage of trained technologists. The Pristina Via breast scanner features automated image acquisition with zero clicks to help minimize routine tasks, the company said, in addition to requiring no wait time between exposures. This allows for imaging cycles up to twice as fast as other mammography hardware, according to GE HealthCare. “During our intensive collaboration with our end users in the design phase, we heard time and again that the technologist’s workday can feel like a race against the clock,” Pooja Pathak, global general manager for mammography, said in a statement. “Pristina Via is our answer to this challenge.”
• Novocure’s tumor treating electric fields clear phase 3 pancreatic cancer trial
  Fierce Biotech – December 2, 2024
  Novocure has cleared a phase 3 clinical study in pancreatic cancer, showing its tumor-treating electric fields could help against the notoriously recalcitrant disease. The company’s wearable therapy improved overall survival as part of a first-line regimen for patients with inoperable pancreatic adenocarcinoma, one of the most lethal cancers. Novocure said the results of the trial, known as PANOVA-3, will form the basis of submissions for regulatory approvals in the U.S., the EU, Japan and other international markets.
• Vaccine maker doubles its space at Bay Area biotech mega-campus
  San Francisco Chronicle – November 28, 2024
  A growing glut of vacant lab space in San Francisco and other corners of the Peninsula has been weighing heavily on developers, though one Bay Area project appears to be defying recent economic pressures. In San Carlos, vaccine maker Vaxcyte has more than doubled its footprint since taking space at 825 Industrial Road, a new mega-campus that’s under development by Alexandria Real Estate Equities, in 2021. Alexandria, a real estate investment trust focused on life sciences development, has announced Vaxcyte’s expansion from roughly 113,000 square feet to more than 258,500 square feet, which resulted from a renewal that has extended the company’s lease at the campus for an additional 10 years.