- 3 years ago
6 November 2023
Dr Mehrdad Mobasher understands the importance of having equity in global access to innovative medicines for cancer patients. Raised in Iran, he lost his mother to cancer while studying medicine at Stanford University and has since watched his sister battle with cancer.
Hence his desire to ensure the largest number of people have access to innovative cancer therapies regardless of where they live, and the reason he left clinical practice in 2010 to join the pharmaceutical industry, seeing it as an opportunity to impact more patients.
“I practised as a physician and the one thing that you want to do is be able to improve more patients’ lives and treat more cancers all around the globe,” Dr Mobasher told MedNews.
“One thing that gives me a lot of joy in what I do is the impact on a bigger level we can have when we develop novel therapies. When I thought about transitioning from academia and clinical practice to industry in 2010, this is what I thought about.”
Dr Mobasher initially joined Genentech (known as Roche in Australia), working almost exclusively on haematological cancers before moving to BeiGene in August 2022 as its Chief Medical Officer, Haematology.
“When I think about what drove me to BeiGene, one was of course the pipeline,” he says. “As a physician, I wanted medicines that differentiated themselves, whether they were best in class or first in the modality or first in class. That’s how we impact patients’ lives.
“BeiGene is very dedicated to haematology, starting with BRUKINSA (zanubrutinib) and now sonrotoclax, which has the opportunity to have a huge impact across different haematological malignancies.”
Australian focus on blood cancer
Dr Mobasher is in Melbourne this week to present at the prestigious Blood23 Conference, potentially speaking to all three of the company’s innovative products in market and in development.
Brukinsa was not the first BTK inhibitor to market but its safety and efficacy profile means it has quickly stolen market share from the dominant player, Janssen’s IMBRUVICA (ibrutinib), now claiming almost a quarter of the BTKi market on the PBS.
Sonrotoclax is likely to replicate this, threatening AbbVie’s leading BCL-2 inhibitor VENCLEXTA (venetoclax). BeiGene is trialling sonrotoclax in numerous indications including in combination with Brukinsa in first-line chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).
“Australia has been instrumental in the development of sonrotoclax,” Dr Mobasher says. “We are enrolling a wide range of B-cell malignancies as well as myeloid malignancies, AML, MDS, and also a subset of multiple myeloma.
“B-cell malignancies is something that BeiGene has been present in with Brukinsa, and now sonrotoclax. We continue our leadership in B-cell malignancies but are also expanding into other disease areas.
“We have about 1,000 scientists just working in research and optimising how we approach targets. With Brukinsa, they had a theory that if you’re developing a kinase inhibitor, it has to hit the target, be selective, be potent, and have sustained inhibition of the target. That panned out to be correct in a big development plan.”
Like Brukinsa to Imbruvica, sonrotoclax is proving to be more potent than Venclexta while also being “very selective against BCL-2”. Its shorter half-life also means lower toxicity, Dr Mobasher saying this all points to sonrotoclax having the potential to replicate Brukinsa’s success.
Meanwhile, a third product in development, a BTK degrader dubbed BGB-16673, has potential further down the treatment line against more aggressive blood cancers.
“When we talk about the mission of the company to provide greater accessibility for patients around the globe, BeiGene has done it successfully with Brukinsa and has the ability to do it again with sonrotoclax,” says Dr Mobasher. “With our BTK degrader, we have enrolled patients and are very excited about the data we are going to see.”
Brukinsa is approved in more than 65 countries. In May, BeiGene partnered with the Max Foundation to enable access in another 29 low- and middle-income countries.
“Moments like that make me very proud,” says Dr Mobasher. “I was born and raised in Iran so it is great to join a company that thinks about the entire globe.”
While blood cancer treatment is now crowded with BTKis, bispecifics, CAR T-cell therapies and BCL-2 inhibitors, Dr Mobasher says as a physician, he is happy to see so many options available.
“The role BeiGene plays within that crowded space is to elevate options available for patients,” he says. “We want to make sure we bring treatments that are efficacious, safer, or where the patient’s quality of life is better. If we offer treatments to patients that have all of these together, then they will be evaluated correctly by the payers as well.”
Time and convenience matter
Dr Mobasher says the convenience of oral medications such as Brukinsa and sonrotoclax cannot be overlooked. BeiGene’s combination trial puts the two tablets together as a one-year treatment option demonstrating that it can extend progression free survival, making it a potentially exciting option for patients.
While the average patient age for many haematological cancers is around 70, Dr Mobasher says patients are often much younger. Regardless, many want a safe, tolerable, time-limited therapy that will enable them to get on with their lives.
“With innovation, we should really try to move to earlier lines of treatment because you can save more patients from needing to get to second line and third line treatments,” he said. “The cost of later line treatments is ultimately going to be bigger than if you focus on earlier lines of therapy.
“Yet while first line is important, we are not ignoring later lines because we are getting better treatments now that are extending patients’ lives. All these lines of treatment are important. That’s how we think about Brukinsa, the degrader and sonrotoclax – we can cover the overall journey of patients.
“With the pipeline that we have at BeiGene and our dedication to haematology, I think we are going to affect a lot of patient lives.”
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