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UK: New breakthrough tailor-made treatments could cure killer cancer diseases

2014/04/22

(Source: Daily Express 2014-4-17)

The breakthrough marks a new era of research into personalised medicines that could reduce the disease to a chronic illness – or one day even cure it, say experts.

Researchers are developing genetic tests to identify changes in tumours that could lead to individual treatments tailored for each patient.

And today they are unveiling a ground-¬breaking clinical trial by Cancer Research UK and two leading pharmaceutical companies that will allow drugs to be tested on patients chosen because of their genetic make-up.

The trial will start recruiting patients with advanced lung cancer at 18 UK centres this summer. Cancer Research UK chief executive Harpal Kumar said: “If it is successful, as we suspect it will be, we would fully expect to roll this out to other types of cancer thereafter.”

Once the genetics of each lung tumour is determined, patients will be given a specific drug to target what is driving their individual cancer. Researchers will then look for signs of improvement – tumour shrinkage or an ¬alleviation of symptoms.

Up to 14 drugs could be used ¬during the initial two-year National Lung Matrix trial – 12 from AstraZeneca and two from Pfizer, which with Cancer Research UK are jointly funding the £25million trial, with support from the NHS.

These drugs can target very specific and often rare mutations, so they could offer hope for patients who would otherwise have very limited treatment options.

Medicines that show promise in the small groups of patients may be fast-tracked into larger trials involving more patients with the same genetic changes.

Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of innovative medicines and early development at AstraZeneca said: “In the next decade we might see some of these tumour types become chronic illnesses. Combining immunotherapies with targeted therapies could ¬ultimately give us a potential cure. Hopefully that will lead to people living with cancer for years. If we start to understand what is driving the tumour we could start to offer patients treatments that prolong their life.”

Dr Kumar said: “This is a very important step forward in the fight against cancer. This partnership is exciting because we’re trying to achieve something that none of us could manage alone – targeting treatments towards the patients who we know are the most likely to benefit. We know that every patient’s cancer is unique, so we’re moving away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach and striving for more personalised treatment. We are shifting the emphasis from designing a trial around a specific drug, to designing it around selecting from a range of drugs for a specific patient.”

Dr Mace Rothenberg, senior vice president of clinical development and medical affairs, and chief medical officer at Pfizer Oncology, said: “We have learned that targeting the genetic abnormalities within a cancer can lead to meaningful improvements in care.”

Professor Gary Middleton, chief investigator for the trial and based at the Cancer Research UK clinical trials unit in Birmingham, said: “This is one of the largest ever personalised medicine trials in any cancer, one which attempts to match the right treatment to the right patient based on an in-depth understanding of what makes their own cancer cells grow and survive.

“For our patients, it’s a tremendous opportunity to access a wide range of therapies tailored specifically to their particular lung cancer. For people caring for lung cancer patients in the UK, it’s exciting to be able to offer these treatments to patients when they’re still at a very early stage of clinical development.”

Health Minister Jeremy Hunt said: “I look forward to the benefits this will bring for cancer patients and their families.”

Around 42,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer in the UK every year and it kills 35,000 annually. Only nine per cent of patients ¬survive beyond five years after diagnosis.


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