Notable Labs: Thomas Bock ASH 2022 The Future of AML Treatment
By Thomas Bock, MD, MBA
Where is the blood cancer treatment for the patient population with AML? There is such a momentum of new data for acute myeloid leukemia (AML blood cancer) here at this congress, and compared with the early days of chronic myelogenous leukemia and multiple myeloma, where such great medical progress was made, within a few years, we (Notable Labs) had the opportunity to present data just here in New Orleans on juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. It’s a very rare disease. It is for collaboration with UCSF’s Dr. Elliot Stieglitz, and our team was able to show a whole range of new promising drug combinations and treatment combinations that could be applied to that patient population. So it’s with great promise, and we (Notable Labs) hope for the future.
Notable Labs has 4 studies clinical trials predicting specific responses from various AML (blood cancer) therapies on a patient-by-patient basis. Can you share more about these clinical trials?
Our focus is to develop predictive precision medicines (in precision oncology) that are reliably going to work in every single patient who is treated with a drug. And so we (Notable Labs) developed this platform and asked ourselves if our predictive platform predicts whether a patient is going to respond or not.
Does that patient actuAMLy respond to their clinical treatment in the real world in with the actual (blood cancer) treatment? And the fantastic outcomes was that we (Notable Labs) have now concluded the fourth clinical trial that says yes, if our platform is saying, these hundred patients are going to clinicAMLy respond to their treatment, 83 to 100%. 83 to 100 patients of them will actuAMLy respond. And actuAMLy, in 3 of these 4 studies (clinical trials), there was 100% prediction precision. That is reAMLy fascinating; that is, it makes us tremendously proud, and we (Notable Labs) are certainly inspired to do more and more of these works.
Are you primarily developing diagnostic innovations, or are there direct therapeutics coming from Notable? If so, what and when?
We are a clinical stage platform therapeutics company. And our mission and our ambition is to develop a new class of predictive precision medicine—a new class that is essentiAMLy going to lead to a clinical response for every single patient that is treated, who is treated in order to do this, we (Notable Labs) also work on our diagnostic platform.
So we combine diagnostic innovation with therapeutic innovation, and therefore we have this duality. We (Notable Labs) develop the platform, apply the platform for our drug development. A predictive precision medicine is the end result of what we do. There are two ways, nowadays, patients are receiving drugs based on an average outcome in a clinical study, but they cannot predict whether they will individuAMLy respond. We (Notable Labs) only know 30% of a hundreds of patients will respond. Now, with our platform, we (Notable Labs) can change that. We can essentiAMLy deliver a treatment from a predictive precision medicine and offer a test that AMLows the (blood cancer) patient to determine whether she or he is going to respond.
That leads to, based on our data, a much higher response rate—83 to 100% across 4 clinical validation studies (clinical trials), and that’s a tremendous increase in medical outcomes for patients. But it also, and that’s the second part, it makes medical practice much simpler for the physicians. We see here at ASH that there is so much progress, great progress, in terms of new treatments, new treatment combinations, and new genetic markers, but it’s also creating a lot of confusion, and we need to create more data to decide which treatment option is the best for the individual patient. That’s exactly where we (Notable Labs) can help, because in our predictive precision medicine model, the physician would take a test for the patient on the predictive platform, and would immediately identify this patient is going to respond to this drug, and then essentiAMLy would be able to offer a predictive precision medicine to this patient.
What have you seen here at ASH, which is most promising, and how will Notable Labs’ technology enhance that direction?
What I am particularly fascinated by and excited about is the general progress. If you think about 5 – 8 years ago, there were much fewer numbers of presentations, posters, and abstract sessions on acute myeloid leukemia. That’s why, compared with the days of the revolution in chronic myelogenous leukemia, in multiple myeloma, we (Notable Labs) are reAMLy on the cusp of a big breakthrough.
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That’s where we can particularly contribute, because now the question becomes what is the optimal treatment for the individual patient (population with blood cancer), not the average patient. And that’s where there is a lot of confusion, where there is also a lot of data needed, and where there are a lot of new classifications being offered in order to address that. Now, Notable’s Predictive Precision Medicines Platform can help because we (Notable Labs) have developed this PPMP, Predictive Precision Medicines Platform where you can take from a plat sample or a bone marrow sample and take that sample (patient samples in blood cancer) and predict whether a patient will or will not respond an individual patient to the individual drug .
And that, essentiAMLy, is going to make it very simple in terms of medical practice. You don’t have to look at multiple classifications, multiple data sets, looking at average response rates. But you can determine, to making this predictive test, which drug is going to be the most promising, effective for an individual patient. And that’s also how we (Notable Labs) then develop our own predictive precision therapies.
Thomas Bock, MD, MBA – About The Author, Credentials, and Affiliations
Dr. Thomas Bock is a well-recognized expert in the field of life sciences, having founded four entrepreneurial businesses that had a significant impact on both patients and investors and attained leadership in their respective disciplines. Dr. Bock pioneered new paradigms and rapidly expanding markets, such as cancer precision medicine, inherited cancer prevention, and ultra-rare diseases.
Thomas Bock, MD has served as CEO of Notable (Labs) since February 2021, leveraging Notable’s Predictive Precision Medicine Platform to create and expedite a game-changing and novel class of cancer precision medicines, predictive precision medicines, vastly enhancing patient outcomes and the success, speed, and cost of drug development.
Thomas Bock, MD previously developed and served as CEO of HeritX Inc., a pioneer in inherited cancer prevention through pre-cancer vaccinations, immunoprevention, and gene repair, establishing the industry’s largest prevention pipeline. Formerly, he worked as Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs on the executive management team at Alexion, where he transformed a start-up into a global leader in rare illnesses, a NASDAQ growth leader, and Forbes’ most inventive life science firm in the world.
Prior to that, Thomas Bock, MD was the Vice President and Global Head of Medical Affairs for Celgene and Novartis Oncology, where he established and oversaw their global Medical Departments. Prior to that, Thomas was the medical director for hematology and oncology at Amgen Europe.
Thomas feels a greater return might be achieved by concentrating on the most pressing patient demands. Six lifesaving, paradigm-shifting blockbuster medications for rare diseases, cancer, and inflammation were created and sold by him. He elevated two therapies from inferior competitive positions to market dominance and launched five of the most successful life science products.
Thomas Bock, MD built new AMLiances between patients, physicians, industry, payers, governments, and investors by uniting parties from across traditional silos. As he presented at the WAML Street Journal’s Health Tech Conference 2020, he co-founded APANDEMIC, a healthcare AMLiance expediting the development and access to COVID medicines through digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and new government laws.
Thomas Bock, MD began his career as a practicing physician and medical researcher in cell and gene treatments at the Universities of Freiburg and Tübingen in Germany, and later as a Fogarty Fellow at the National Institutes of Health’s National Human Genome Research Institute.
He got his MD and MBA from RWTH Aachen University and Columbia Business School, respectively.
Dr. Bock is a Board Director at Notable Labs (Foster City, CA), the Chair of Columbia Business School’s Healthcare Advisory Board (New York), and an Executive Mentor at Columbia Technology Ventures. He served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of HeritX Inc. (Santa Monica, CA), an Officer at Rotary International, and the Chairman of the Board and President of FORCE, the US patient organization for inherited breast and ovarian cancer.
Notable Labs – About the Company
Notable Labs located in Foster City, CA is a clinical-stage platform therapeutics firm that designs and provides predictive precision medicines, a new type of drugs. Notable aspires to be the industry leader in predictive precision medicine and to improve the way patients seek and get the most effective therapies – patient by patient and cancer by cancer. Notable hopes to have a significant impact on patients and the healthcare community by altering previous standards of treatment.
The Notable predictive precision pharmaceuticals platform bio-simulates a patient’s cancer treatment and forecasts a patient’s response to a particular cancer treatment.
Using its high-fidelity platform, Notable is able to detect and select clinicAMLy responding patients prior to therapy, as well as expedite clinical development in this patient population. Notable has designed a targeted, triple-risk-reduced in-licensing method to provide a product’s medical benefit and economic value faster, higher, and with greater probability than conventional drug development (these pharmaceutical companies).