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Pioneers in the field of biopharmaceuticals are making incredible discoveries that reverberate across the entire medical and scientific world. And it’s happening everyday right here in the Bay Area.
Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) is a world-renowned biopharmaceutical company with sites in San Francisco, Redwood City and Brisbane. Their mission is to discover, develop and deliver some of the most innovative medicines in the world.
The BMS San Francisco R&D site is home to scientists and researchers who focus on early clinical developments in hematology, oncology and cell therapy (ECD-HCOT), as well as translational science researching protein degradation and mechanisms of cancer.
In addition, the Brisbane site is focused on developing novel therapies to treat cardiovascular diseases, and the Redwood City site leads efforts in examining the complex biology surrounding tumors. The work across all three sites has the potential to transform the lives of millions of people all over the globe.
But being a leader in the medical R&D space also means tackling some of the field’s greatest challenges.
“When you work in early drug development, a lot of research fails, and you have to have a thick skin and be both optimistic and curious,” says Kristen Hege, MD, a board-certified physician who also serves as the senior vice president of Early Clinical Development, Hematology/Oncology & Cell Therapy at BMS. “We strive to gain a deeper understanding of why experiments don’t work; sometimes you can tweak small things and that will be the difference between starting from scratch and success.”
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Bristol Myers Squibb is Trailblazing Medical Advances in the Bay Area
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hile technology is rapidly evolving and improving our daily lives through efficiency, quality and convenience, some of the most important
technological advances and breakthroughs have been less about changing lives and more about saving them.
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We deeply value our partnerships with smaller biotech firms and academic institutions—it’s an incredible environment to be a part of for scientific innovation.
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— Chetana Rao, PH.D
Head of Site Strategy and Operations at BRISTOL MYERS SQUIBB in San Francisco and Redwood City
Harnessing the Immune System in Redwood City
Many of the physicians on the ECD-HOCT team, including Hege, regularly see and treat patients at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF)—which provides the team with a deeper understanding of and unique appreciation for the patient experience, as well as the real-life impact of their research.
Hege and her colleagues are working to create new cancer therapies. She oversees early clinical development programs for cell therapy, protein degraders, T-cell engagers, monoclonal antibodies and small molecules. In fact, the first and only FDA-approved anti-BCMA CAR T cell therapy, ABECMA® (idecabtagene vicleucel), was developed out of a BMS partnership with bluebird bio, which can also trace its beginnings to the Bay Area. Hege and a former colleague from a partnership that arose between Celgene, now part of BMS, and bluebird bio ultimately led to the successful development and approval of ABECMA®.
“What’s unique about our Bay Area sites is that we have access to this incredible local ecosystem that helps drive our science forward,” says Chetana Rao, Head of Site Strategy and Operations in San Francisco and Redwood City. “We deeply value our partnerships with smaller biotech firms and academic institutions—it’s an incredible environment to be a part of for scientific innovation.”
In addition to the work on ABECMA®, the scientists at BMS’ site in San Francisco utilize an approach known as protein degradation to harness the cell’s own machinery to attack the protein within cancer cells and are currently working on how to degrade several new classes of proteins that were previously considered “undruggable” to combat blood and solid tumor cancers, immunological diseases and more.
“We’ve discovered we can degrade hundreds of previously unidentified proteins, from here, there is potential to close in on even more protein targets,” says Hege. “As we continue to go after more protein targets, we are now looking to figure out which ones have therapeutic uses.”
The newest addition to BMS’ presence in the Bay Area is in Brisbane (formerly MyoKardia). Researchers here are aiming to redefine how heart disease is diagnosed and treated. The team uses human genetics and translational data to guide drug discovery programs by first identifying and understanding the root cause and underlying biology of the disease. This helps the team develop therapeutic solutions that may address the disease in a more direct, personalized way.
To accomplish this, our scientists are working to expand the knowledge of genetics in heart disease through collaborations both across BMS and with outside investigators and organizations. Building and analyzing these datasets guides ongoing discovery and development programs as scientists select the next generation of targets on which to test new therapies.
Just a short drive south from San Francisco is Redwood City, where another of BMS’s R&D campuses examines the deep complexities of the tumor microenvironment (TME) through various lenses. The Redwood City team collaborates closely with discovery and translational scientists across the country to research the best way to harness the body’s own immune system to better target tumors.
Many landmark discoveries have happened at this site, including the discovery of FDA-approved immune checkpoint inhibitors OPDIVO® (nivolumab) and YERVOY® (ipilimumab), in addition to a variety of innovative research opportunities being investigated.
“There is a novel approach being used in Redwood City where we’re pursuing new avenues of innovation in fields such as stromal biology and myeloid biology. We've never done that before. This is all new and really exciting to be part of,” said Nick Wilson, executive director, head of Immunology & Stromal Biology at the TME TRC in Redwood City.
The researchers and scientists at BMS Redwood City are dedicated to solving tough questions like: What makes a tumor invisible to the immune system, and how that can be changed? The BMS teams are constantly hunting for the next generation of immunotherapies and combination therapies to help improve patient outcomes.
One scientist leading the charge at BMS is Amanda Mikels-Vigdal, Ph.D., who serves as a director of Stromal Biology at the TME TRC in Redwood City. Amanda and her team are exploring parts of the TME to better understand how cancer cells interact within a tumor. The team plans to turn these findings into novel treatment options to help people living with difficult-to-treat cancers.
“Our focus is to try to understand, holistically, what’s happening in a tumor by taking into account all of the cell types present in a tumor: the cancer cells themselves, immune cells, and the surrounding support cells (called the stroma) that become dysregulated within the tumor microenvironment,” says Mikels-Vigdal. “From there, we work to change those interactions to ultimately disrupt the tumor and allow the patient’s own system to try and fight the cancer.”
In addition to the Discovery Myeloid Biology team, the In Vivo Pharmacology, Translational Development, Biotherapeutics, Predictive Sciences, Medicinal Chemistry & Lead Discovery and Optimization organizations all work together in an interdisciplinary approach to lead innovation in TME discovery. These interwoven teams work together to answer key questions and more intimately understand the interplay between the immune system and cancer.
“Through our research, we evaluate how stromal cells interact with tumor and immune cells across tumor types and patient populations,” Mikels-Vigdal said. “That way, we as researchers can learn how to target them therapeutically and in the right patients.”
Mikels-Vigdal, Hege and Wilson make up just a handful of the many leading scientists who are forging the innovative path in early drug discovery at BMS.
“The team here is full of passion for the work we do. We know that there are so many people who struggle to find the right treatment options,” says Hege. “Being a part of the solution in tackling serious diseases that not many companies are facing in this space, makes it incredibly exciting to be here at BMS.”
To learn more about opportunities at Bristol Myers Squibb, click here.
hile technology is rapidly evolving and improving our daily lives through efficiency, quality and convenience, some of the most important
technological advances and breakthroughs have been less about changing lives and more about saving them.
Follow Us