Real Time Conference Coverage: Advancing Precision Medicine Conference, Afternoon Session Track 1 October 3 2025
Reporter: Stephen J. Williams, PhD
Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intellegence will be covering this conference LIVE over X.com at
using the following meeting hashtags
#AdvancingPM #precisionmedicine #WINSYMPO2025
WIN SYMPOSIUM
1:50-4:05
SESSION 4
From Targets to Trials:
Translating Discovery into Impact
1:50-2:10
Beyond Checkpoint Inhibitors: Targeted Immunotherapeutic Approaches for the Management of Solid Tumors
Matthew Hadfield, DO, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Phase 1 Clinical Trials, Cutaneous Malignancies, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
- we need to turn these immuno-cold tumors into immuno ‘hot’ tumors so immunotherapy will be effective and recognize them
- however each immunotherapies have their own toxicities
- immunocheck points inhibitors: 50% of patients get very rough adverse events and have to stop therapy and give immunosuppressives
- 60 yo female with urothelial carcinoma with chemo induced rash given pembrolizumab but got worse rash… had Steven Johnson Syndrome… fatal outcome from one cycle of PD-L1 inhibitor
- so now we are giving these immune checkpoints earlier before even surgery… the overall survival better but there are certain personalized toxicities
- up to 35% patients with cancer have chronic immuno related adverse events and dose limiting toxicities
- 50% have low grade multiple toxicities (and they treat these AEs with steroids)
- we have no biomarkers for these PD/PDL1 inhibitor adverse events
2:10-2:30
Implementing Molecular Profiling in Early Phase Clinical Trials: Precision from Bench to Bedside
- power of biomarkers: BRCA2 null women with ovarian cancer success with olaparib even though at time was not approved except the biomarker known
- every week they discuss with internal tumor board and consult with Foundation Medicine; however a mutational panel is great but need to understand the underlying effect on tumor biology
- there are a handful of tumor agnostic targeted agents: based on biomarkers
- she thinks digital twins will be helpful in determining cohort selection for clinical trails
- she would like multiomics to be performed on every patient but how would this be done, especially in the ecosystem of the USA
- from attendee question to speaker panel (from Indai): they have been running tmolecular boards but problem is when new targets or fusion proteins become known without a priori knowledge of them and no combination know what to do?
:30-2:40
Q&A
Matthew Hadfield, DO, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Phase 1 Clinical Trials, Cutaneous Malignancies, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
2:40-3:20
Non- CME Session: Venture Philanthropy
Eric Heil, MBA, Managing Partner, Medical Excellence Capital
- started a venture fund and then a 501(c) to give small grants
- in venture philanthropy it is not traditional grant writing but more of a personal relationship; he says find other companies they have backed and ask them
- all about networking
- looked at 1400 deals but only invested in 13
- back years ago his company biotech got ten million after 2009 from TAP but now it seems smaller bridge money
John Lehr, President & CEO, Parkinson’s Foundation
- runs venture philanthropy which is more like a mix of venture fund and granting agency
- most run a for profit venture but mix model with 501c to fund small grants
Dr. Blaine Robinson, PhD, Vice President of the Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP), Blood Cancer United
- runs Blood Cancer United that offers grants for blood based research
- they run three pillars: venture biotech funding, clinical trial funding, and academic research but most they take equity in biotechs
- so venture philanthropy is more of equity investing and using those funds to fund younger companies like bridge between first round and series C
- Blood Cancer United looking for million and above investment “first in class’; was early with Kite and UPenn (where are they now… are they still with them?)
3:20-4:10
eNSCLC Testing
- lung cancer has seemed to be ahead with respect to biomarkers and precision therapies
- at least with NCCN guidelines they are up to 14 therapeutic biomarkers not diagnostic biomarkers so very ahead on the clinical decision making on actionable mutations for lung cancer
- so most of the testing is genomic mutational spectrum for oncogenic drivers
- there are three protein based biomarkers: Met, PDL1,
- FISH is still used for some fusions
- NGS is more sensitive test but takes 2-4 weeks
- the number of detected EGFR variants are increasing so it is affecting the drug specificity
- recently NRG1 fusions have been approved as a heregulin HER3 biomarker;
- 15% which were detected as negative for fusions the patients actually responded because fusions were hard to detect; many false positives
- 76% did not meet MET eligbility but only 13% were high enough for MET marker but was enough for FDA approval
- some drugs beneficial for mutated version and some good for over expressed like MET or HER2 but where the mutation or exon skipping is important for therapy choice
- we need better biobanking because we need more tissue; we loose more tissue during sectioning and not splitting blocks into two (one for diagnostic one for therapeutic)
- liquid biopsy will find some mutations but other ones not very sensitivity in liquid biopsy like MET mutations (mutations may be assay specific)
- some muts in bone marrow may just be in aging progenitor cells and sometimes in oncogene like BRAF but not cancer but dlonal homatopoesis (increased risk for myeloproliferative diseases but not solid tumors like melanoma)
- clonal homatopoesis actually common so watch out when just relying on liquid biopsy
2012pharmaceutical
sjwilliamspa