Therapeutics


Patients are our shareholders Ultimately, the aim of all drug development is to improve patient health and well-being, but we have taken this a step further. Patient-focused drug development is the central pillar in our model, guiding all work done within Therapeutics Discovery. Our teams are driven not by future profits, but by a desire to end the devastating effects of cancer on patients and their families. Being a part of the nation’s leading cancer hospital allows us to work with unparalleled proximity and access to patients and clinicians daily. Through those interactions, we are able to


understand patients’ clinical needs first-hand and can work to address those needs. At MD Anderson no cancer is rare, so the Therapeutics Discovery team focuses on advancing projects that specifical- ly target unmet medical needs, including tumour types that occur infrequently and those for which therapies are either lacking or are suboptimal. We are acutely aware of the suffering cancer can cause, and each of our team members is passionate about improving the lives of our patients. We consider our patients to be our shareholders, and their sur- vival our bottom line.


Our approach As a drug development engine within the walls of a leading cancer hospital, our Therapeutics Discovery Division is not working to bring the bench to the bedside. Rather, we start with the bench at the bedside, with each patient and their cancer. The Therapeutics Discovery Division consists of


more than 100 clinicians, researchers and drug development experts from four research platforms at MD Anderson (see box). Our teams are built around scientists who operate at the highest level in their fields, have a multifaceted understanding


of drug development and are able to work effec- tively in cross-functional teams. They traverse both the research and clinical sides of the process and understand what is required to move a medicine – whether it be a small-molecule drug, a biologic or cellular therapy – into and through the clinic. We have taken advantage of having multidisciplinary researchers and clinicians under one roof, enabling a focused effort dedicated to the mission of bring- ing impactful therapies to the patients here at MD Anderson. Our strength does not rest solely in our teams


though, but also within the broader institution we call home. Through daily interaction with world- renowned clinicians and researchers at MD Anderson, we can collaborate in ever more power- ful and rapid ways to break down the traditional silos that have hampered others, yielding no short- age of novel ideas for our drug developers to pur- sue for therapeutic interventions. A key advantage for members of Therapeutics


Discovery is real-time access to clinical data and insights from physician-scientists, who treat more than 130,000 cancer patients each year, helping us to tailor our drug discovery and development pro- jects to meet the needs of patients they see in the clinic. For example, ideas for Therapeutics Discovery projects may emerge from physicians seeking therapies for a subset of patients with a specific tumour type that fails to respond to treat- ment or who relapse on treatment due to molecular differences in their tumours. Ideas may also devel- op from an innovative discovery in a research lab or from the implementation of disruptive technolo- gies, such as advanced high-throughput functional genomics. Often, based upon our collaborations, we are able to pursue ideas for therapeutic strate- gies long before the data appear in a peer-reviewed publication. Once Therapeutics Discovery scientists are


Four collaborative platforms within Therapeutics Discovery


l Institute for Applied Cancer Science (IACS): discovers and develops impactful small- molecule cancer therapies


l Center for Co-Clinical Trials (CCCT): identifies novel therapeutic targets and defines the specific Phase I clinical trials to conduct with therapeutics from IACS


l Oncology Research for Biologics and Immunotherapy Translation (ORBIT): discovers and develops novel monoclonal antibodies


l Neurodegeneration Consortium (NDC): develops therapeutics that can effectively alleviate symptoms in patients with a variety of neurodegenerative conditions


approached with a new idea, a cross-functional team is assembled to assess the programme around three key pillars: potential clinical impact/medical need, strength of the biological rationale and feasi- bility of developing a therapeutic (small-molecule, biologic or cellular therapeutic). In some instances, additional data needs to be generated to clarify gaps in the data package before a programme is adopted into the pipeline, while in other cases a limited set of ‘killer’ experiments are conducted within Therapeutics Discovery that allow us to make rapid go/no-go decisions in eight weeks or less. Programmes that pass this hurdle are then


brought into the Therapeutics Discovery portfolio, where a team of 10-25 researchers is empowered to


60 Drug Discovery World Fall 2018


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72