IMMUNO-ONCOLOGY XCHANGE
EAST COAST 2023
Boston
May 23, 2023
May 23, 2023
Welcome to hubXchange’s Immuno-Oncology Xchange East Coast 2023, bringing together executives from pharma and biotech to address and find solutions to the key issues faced in developing immuno-oncology therapies, through a series of roundtable discussions.
Discussion topics will cover Immune Biomarkers, Translational Research, Clinical Development, Combination Strategies and Next-Generation Therapies.
Take advantage of this unique highly interactive meeting format designed for maximum engagement and collaboration with your peers.
Please note this is an In-Person meeting.
VENUE DETAILS: Hilton Boston Woburn Hotel, 2 Forbes Road, Woburn MA 01801
SNAPSHOTS OF DISCUSSION TOPICS
- Immune landscape and gene signatures in immuno-therapy
- Predictive biomarkers for IO treatment used in clinical practice now and in the future
- Decision enabling biomarkers in IO clinical development
- In vivo models for immunological MoA and biomarker strategies to predict patient response and aid patient selection
- How to select the right translational screening model to monitor IO agents
- Pre-clinical in vivo models for improved toxicity prediction
- Early signals of efficacy, biomarkers and confidence in early clinical I/O trials
- Targeting exhausted cells – Ab cellular therapy combinations
- Different cellular modalities
- TME-targeting combinations – improving efficacy
- Antibody discovery for therapeutic antibodies and different therapeutic modalities
- Metabolic modulation in the TIME for a sustained T-cell effector function
- Use and prospects of Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) combining target-specific capabilities of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with cytotoxicity chemotherapy to treat cancer
Full Xchange Agenda
Click on each track for detailed agenda
Immune Biomarkers
Decision Enabling Biomarkers in IO Clinical Development
Vice President, Immuno Oncology Precision Medicine, Bayer
Amanda Wang is the Vice President and head of Immuno Oncology Precision Medicine at Bayer. Her team is responsible for Biomarker and CDx strategy across various stages of IO development, from target identification & validation to early development, late development and life cycle management. Before joining Bayer in 2019, Amanda worked at Novartis for over nine years, where she focused on biomarker development in autoimmune, Oncology and additional disease areas. Amanda has in-depth experience of translational science and clinical development in IO. Amanda received an PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Virginia. She also received a Master degree in Biostatistics from Boston University.
1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break
Predictive biomarkers for IO treatment used in clinical practice now and in the future
Vice President, Translational Science, Oncology, AstraZeneca
Dr. J. Carl Barrett is Vice President & Global Head of Translational Medicine Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca. He is responsible for development and execution of biomarker strategies and translational sciences efforts to support compound development from research through early and full development in oncology.
Previously, Dr. Barrett was the founding Director of the NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR), the NCI intramural center for translation medicine. He was also Scientific Director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences where he focused on integrating new approaches to toxicogenomics, molecular toxicology, and the Environmental Genome Project.
Afternoon Refreshments
Immune landscape and gene signatures in immuno-therapy
- How can the concept of “immune landscape” be better-utilized to inform treatment decisions
for patients? What technologies are best-utilized to assess the immune landscape of a patient?
How are these technologies implemented in the clinic? - What specific challenges in oncology do gene signatures have the potential to address?
- What are current hurtles preventing the use of gene signatures for patient stratification? How
might such hurtles be overcome?
Principal Scientist, Oncorus
Christopher Dupont is interested in immunotherapy, immune-oncology, checkpoint modulators, vaccines, and oncolytic viruses. He received his PhD from University of Pennsylvania, where he studied mechanisms of antigen presentation following vaccination with attenuated parasites. Chris then performed a postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, applying biotechnology to measure immune responses to Staphylococcal and Pneumococcal vaccination. Chris has worked in immune-oncology for the last 6 years, where he has identified and measured biomarkers for patients undergoing treatment with checkpoint modulators and/or oncolytic viruses. Chris is currently a Principal Scientist in the Translational Medicine and Biomarker Team at Oncorus.
Translational Research
In vivo models for immunological MoA and biomarker strategies to predict patient response and aid patient selection
Senior Scientist, Immunitas Therapeutics
How to select the right translational screening model to monitor IO agents
Principal Scientist, Sapience Therapeutics
Pre-clinical in vivo models for improved toxicity prediction
Scientific Investigator, IOC RU, GSK
Clinical Development
Early signals of efficacy, biomarkers and confidence in early clinical I/O trials
- Learning from previous I/O clinical development experience: success and failure
- Most pertinent cPOC populations: availability and inclusions criteria, clinical trial designs and biomarkers
- Safety considerations and burden
Senior Vice President, Head of Biology, Jnana Therapeutics
Nick Pullen has >20 years of experience in the biopharma industry. Nick is currently the SVP, Head of Biology at Jnana Therapeutics, a biotech company that is exploiting its proprietary chemoproteomics platform, RAPID, to discover new classes of medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases. Prior to joining Jnana, Nick worked for 3 years in the Integrated Sciences group at Celgene (later Bristol Myers Squibb) providing scientific leadership across a portfolio of external Drug Discovery partnerships with early-stage biotech companies. Prior to Celgene, Nick spent 17 years at Pfizer in a series of roles with increasing responsibility leading large drug discovery teams. In his career, Nick has helped advance >10 molecules, both small as well as large molecule drugs into the clinic, the most advanced, PF-00547659, reaching PhIII before being shuttered just prior to regulatory NDA submission. Nick is an author of >40 manuscripts in leading journals covering a variety of scientific discoveries and is a co-inventor on 9 patents.
Afternoon Refreshments
Cellular Therapies
Targeting exhausted cells – Ab – cellular therapy combinations
- Modifying the tumor microenvironment to prevent exhaustion
- Modifying CAR T cells to resist exhaustion
- Reversal of exhaustion
- Combination therapies
Senior Advisor, AffyImmune Therapeutics
Eric von Hofe has over 25 years of experience in biotechnology, with a focus on cancer immunotherapy and technology development. Prior to AffyImmune, he led development efforts at Antigen Express advancing the clinical development of both an immunotherapeutic vaccine for breast and prostate cancer as well as a prophylactic vaccine for potentially pandemic viruses. Prior to that he held positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals developing novel technologies for drug development and personalized medicine. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Zurich and Harvard.
Different cellular modalities
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Alloplex Biotherapeutics Inc.
TME-targeting combinations – improving efficacy
Head of Computational Biology, Immunitas Therapeutics
Next-Generation Therapies
Antibody discovery for therapeutic antibodies and different therapeutic modalities
Director, Biology – Antibody Engineering, Mersana Therapeutics
Metabolic modulation in the TIME for a sustained T-cell effector function
Vice President, Biology, Mersana Therapeutics