DRUG DEVELOPMENT
Roche launches cancer network Drug firm gathers academic researchers to tackle immuno-oncology therapies To support its position in the competitive immuno-oncology (I-O) field, Roche will invest up to $100 million in academic research. The drugmaker has created what it calls the immunotherapy Centers of Research Excellence, or imCORE, a network spanning 21 as-yet-undisclosed institutions across nine countries. “The goal of imCORE is to facilitate access to new technologies and emerging data among the top researchers around the world,” Roche Chief Medical Officer Sandra Horning said when announcing the network. Roche anticipates its investment will help speed up preclinical and clinical research to advance new therapies that harness the immune system to fight cancer. The Swiss drug company isn’t the first to try this approach. In May 2012, Bristol-Myers Squibb created the International Immuno-Oncology Network, which now
from about $5 billion this year to nearly $60 billion a decade from now. includes 13 cancer research But a problem for the large centers in the U.S. and Europe. drug companies dominating the In 2015, Bristol-Myers also set increasingly crowded space is up a multi-institutional Immuthat “they all have similarities in no-Oncology Rare Population their pipelines,” Webster says. Malignancy program in the U.S. “Everybody is asking, ‘What is Bristol-Myers’s Opdivo and next?’ And collaborating with Merck & Co.’s Keytruda are academia is perhaps one of the immune checkpoint inhibitors most efficient ways of being already enjoying success as able to identify novel targets.” anti-PD-1 treatments effective Companies are finding for certain patients. And Roche that a promising therapeutic recently beat out AstraZeneca approach is to mix I-O drugs and Pfizer by getting approval Roche’s Tecentriq with agents that have different for the first PD-L1 inhibitor. was the first mechanisms of action. Webster Checkpoint inhibitors are PD-L1 inhibitor suggests that academic reexpected to account for 95% approved. searchers can help provide the of the cancer therapy market scientific rationales for doing by 2025, says Rachel Webster, a senior so while assisting in finding biomarkers director at the market research firm Decithat signal which patients will respond.— sion Resources. Combined sales will grow ANN THAYER
SUSTAINABILITY
Cleantech industry ponders Trump presidency
CREDIT: ROCHE (BOTTLE); EVERYDAY ENERGY (SOLAR PANELS)
With climate policies in the crosshairs, companies pin hopes on job creation efforts U.S. companies that make renewable chemicals, fuels, and energy are bracing for policy changes under the incoming Trump administration. Although the president-elect is skeptical about climate change, trade groups say they believe the Republican leadership will support investment in cleantech R&D and manufacturing to create jobs and boost energy security. “Even if you discount climate change initiatives, there is strong support for U.S.-based energy efficiency and domestic energy production,” says Paul Winters, spokesman for the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), a trade group that represents many producers of biobased chemicals. “Innovation and support for science are still popular.” One area that biofuel and solar firms are watching closely is the fate of renewable investment and production tax credits. Even if the credits stay in place, changes to corporate tax rates could impact their effectiveness, according to BIO and the Solar
Energy Industries Association. Also being watched are grants and loan guarantees from the U.S. departments of energy and agriculture—often worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars—to locate big plants in the U.S. Those programs may be scaled back or broadened to include nonrenewable industries. The future for sustainable Clean technologies rules may be loosened, Klein transportation is up in the air, such as solar warns, to the detriment of inaccording to Tammy Klein of power are good vestment in new electric vehithe consulting firm Future Fuel job generators, cle technology. Strategies. “Trump has been backers say. States may take up the mansupportive of biofuels, and I tle of supporting cleantech expect the Renewable Fuels Standard promanufacturing. Already, makers of adgram will largely stay intact,” she says. The vanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol RFS mandates that refiners blend biofuels can market their fuels in California and made from sugars, oils, and biomass into Oregon, which have low-carbon fuel mangasoline and diesel fuel. dates. And both Iowa and Minnesota offer a But if Republicans strip EPA’s ability to per-lb tax credit for production of biobased regulate CO2 emissions, auto fuel economy chemicals.—MELODY BOMGARDNER NOVEMBER 21, 2016 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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