GLG News by Dr. Donald Fleming MD, Division Head of Hematology and Oncology
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
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November 14, 2009
US FDA accepts ChemGenex's Omapro NDA filing to treat CML, grants priority review status | www.pharmabiz.com
Patients with CML have a good prognosis when treated with TKI's An exception is the ones that develope a particular mutation known as T315IOnly SCT seems to be effective in this group of patients and maybe too morbid of therapy for many patients
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Triple negative Breast Cancer Strategies
October 14, 2009
MediGene completes patient recruitment into EndoTAGTM-1 phase II breast cancer trial | www.pharmabiz.com
Triple negative Breast cancer has been a phenotype with little hope up until recentlyWhile advances in hormonal therapy and Her2 blocking agents has revolutionized ER/PR + and Her 2 positive breast cancer therapy, triple negative breast cancer pulls down the outcomes, with similar responses as for non small cell lung cancer
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Farletuzumab (F) helps the ovarian cancer patients that do well, do well?
September 25, 2009
Farletuzumab Data Presented on Phase II Clinical Trial in First-Relapsed Ovarian Cancer Subjects | www.pipelinereview.com
F recently demonstrated a great majority of platinum sensitive patients respond when given in combination with a platinum based regimen in recurrent ovarian caPlatinum sensitive patients typically do well with platinum based intervention, but it's the platinum resistant ( denovo or delayed) that we have a problem with
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Herceptin for Her2 + gastric cancer, If you can find one
September 25, 2009
Roche's Herceptin provides impressive survival benefit in HER2-positive advanced gastric cancer | www.pharmabiz.com
Herceptin recently reported in Phase II ASCo data to enhance chemo in Her 2 positive gastric cancer
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REGORAFENIB joins a crowd of TKI's for RCC
September 25, 2009
Bayer's anti-cancer drug regorafenib shows stabilization or regression in 81% of kidney cancer patients | www.pharmabiz.com
RCC now has multiple TKI"S either approved or in development for txThe disease control rate seems to be a popular and effective endpoint to get drugs for RCC approved
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Pay for performance Medicare "reform"
May 4, 2009
Medicare System Overhaul Proposed by Two Senators | www.nytimes.com
Medicare will reward based on outcome Medicare will pay for chronic illness acre based on outcome results Be careful about heading towards cancer care rationing
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February 27, 2009
Intas Biopharma to market Pemetrexed in India soon | www.pharmabiz.com
Alimta has been approved as upfront treatemnt of NSCLCA with platinum Alimta approved US as single agent salvage treatment NSCLCa Market share IN US hsa been crowded out by other platinum combinations
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tarceva adds to avastin but avastin doesn't add to tarceva?
February 17, 2009
OSI, Genentech Say Cancer Drug’s Benefits Ends Trial (Update2) | www.bloomberg.com
Beta lung demonstrated no benefit of adding avastin to tarceva as second line advanced lung cancer therapy Atals trial demonstrates adding tarceva to avastin after chemo in advanced lung cancer does benefit
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More may or may not be better in colorectal cancer
February 6, 2009
Chemotherapy, Bevacizumab, and Cetuximab in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer | nejm.highwire.org
Recent trial such as PACE and CAIRO imply combo biologics are not helpful Is it likely this will hold true in future situations?
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Plitidepsin ( Aplidin) helps in PTCL patients
January 19, 2009
PharmaMar announces the extension of Phase II trial with Aplidin(R) in Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma after the excellent preliminary results | www.pipelinereview.com
New drug plitidepsin has anti tumor effects in PTCL patients PTCL is a relatively rare NHL form of NHL Plitidepsin has much more financial potential outside of NHL
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January 15, 2009
Algeta completes comprehensive phase II clinical program with Alpharadin for treating bone metastases in patients with advanced prostate cancer | www.pipelinereview.com
prostate cancer patients have bone mets as a major problem Radioisotopic therapy has been designed to address the issue
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Sublingual fentanyl for cancer related pain
January 5, 2009
Introducing Abstral(R). Innovative Drug Delivery Technology For Rapid Breakthrough Cancer Pain Management | www.medicalnewstoday.com
Always room for more pain medications/formulations for cancer patients The sublingual fentanyl approach is a highly desirable formulation due to rapid onset of action ie BTP control The concern is the faster they can be made to act, the more the abuse potential by non cancer patients
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More is better with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML)
December 22, 2008
Higher Chemo Drug Dose Prolongs Lives of Leukemia Patients | www.washingtonpost.com
Higher doses of conventional chemotherapy agent , improves outcome in AML A large population of AML patients are elderly The "higher the dose of chemo, the better" concept still applies to some malignancies
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It's always what's relative and seldom absolute
November 26, 2008
Scientists recommend 'black box' for Avastin | www.fiercepharma.com
Satistics are usually used to reveal dramatic differences Patients often misinterpret relative differences for absolute ones patients are willing to do a lot more to get any benefit in cancer outcome
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The rash and EGFR response can be helpful
November 19, 2008
Merck KGaA: Overall Survival in First-Line NSCLC Reaches 15 Months | www.drugs.com
Many studies support EGFR response correlates with rash Many attempts to actually increase the incidence of rash Most patients will use the EGFR treatments despite the rash
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When being selective, targeted therapy will work
November 13, 2008
Tarceva successful as maintenance therapy | www.fiercebiotech.com
Saturn trial attempted to focus on EGFR reative patients Saturn was positive as a maintenance therapy, while concurrent was not
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The TKI's are building on their success
October 28, 2008
Phase II Trial of Sorafenib in Advanced Thyroid Cancer | jco.ascopubs.org
TKI's have been establihed in a small number of refractory solid cancers With slow migration to other venues, we are seeing new applications
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Vaccine for prostate cancer fails
October 28, 2008
Cell Genesys Announces Termination of VITAL-1 Phase 3 Trial of GVAX Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer | pharmalive.com
Recent Cell Genesys vaccine trial for prostate cancer fails The trial not only shows lack of efficacy, but possible harm from the vaccine arm of the trial
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Hitting the target may reduce the use of targeted cancer drugs or not
October 27, 2008
Targeting EGFR in Colorectal Cancer | content.nejm.org
We are facing an ever increasing expense of treating cancver The so called targeted drugs are the big price items The recent discovery of theses drugs have sometimes been out of order with understanding their activity
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The vaccine approach to cancer has yet to succeed
October 24, 2008
Cell Genesys Announces Termination of VITAL-1 Phase 3 Trial of GVAX Immunotherapy for Prostate Cancer | pharmalive.com
Be cautious of vaccine approaches to cancer No cancer has had success with the use of vaccine therapy We are far from figuring out the reason for failure of vaccines to treat cancer
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