Onco Actu du 29 avril 2016

	2.6 Etiologie - Environnement
Radon and Hematologic Cancer in Women [ACS] The authors say men may have a higher baseline risk, possibly because of more exposure to occupational or other risk factors for hematologic cancer, reducing the impact of any additional risk from residential radon.
Exposure to Particulate Air Pollutants Associated With Numerous Types of Cancer [AACR] For this study, Thach, Thomas, and colleagues enrolled 66,280 people who were age 65 or older when initially recruited between 1998 and 2001. The researchers did not have data on whether they had cancer before they were enrolled. Researchers followed the study subjects until 2011, ascertaining causes of death from Hong Kong registrations. Annual concentrations of PM2.5 at their homes were estimated using data from satellite data and fixed-site monitors.
	4.10 Dép., diag. & prono. - FDA, EMA, NICE,...
There’s a new sheriff in town in Silicon Valley — the FDA [Washington Post] But even as some companies push back against federal agencies’ reach — contesting which rules, if any, apply to their work — there’s now recognition that the government can be a powerful ally rather than a brake on progress. And its stamp of approval can take firms from being worth multimillions to multibillions.
	5. Traitements
Rise of the Cancer Avatars: Implanting Mice With Our Malignancies [Undark] Mice are being implanted with cancerous tissue from human patients to more quickly discover effective, individualized treatments. Can it work?
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Immune Checkpoint Therapeutics - Hot Targets & Pipeline Analysis [ReportLinker] The report in addition to the monotherapy covers the pipeline for combination therapies associated only with checkpoint agents.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T
Kite Pharma Announces Presentations at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT) [KITE] The presentations will address KTE-C19, Kite's lead chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) product candidate, and, separately, a fully-human anti-CD19 CAR product candidate for the treatment of B-cell lymphomas and leukemias.
	5.2.2 Pharma - Fusions & Acquisitions
Stemcentrx Scooped Up [In the Pipeline] That’s a lot of money to put down on the idea of cancer stem cells, so the first assumption is that Stemcentrx must have some mighty compelling data to present. The problem is, you can’t be absolutely sure about that, because some pretty silly deals get made from time to time.
In M&A Bonanza, AbbVie, Sanofi Throw Billions at Stemcentrx, Medivation [Xconomy] It’s been a rocky 2016 for biotech, but so far lower valuations haven’t translated into large acquisitions. At least until this morning, when two of the world’s biggest pharma companies took out their wallets and threw billions of dollars at two biotechs from the San Francisco Bay Area.
A frustrated Sanofi makes $9.3 billion bid for Medivation and its cancer drug [STAT] The move comes amid growing interest among the largest pharmaceutical companies to bolster their portfolios of cancer drugs. The Xtandi treatment that is marketed by Medivation posted global sales of $1.9 billion last year, but could generate much more if the medicine is eventually approved to treat earlier stages of prostate cancer.
Health Care Companies See Scale as the Only Way to Compete [NY Times] While bulking up through acquisitions may make strategic sense for many health care companies, these deals often do not come cheap. Investors did not reward these big merger announcements on Thursday.
Sanofi launches $9.3 billion fight for U.S. cancer firm Medivation [Reuters] Sanofi's move comes on the same day that Abbott Laboratories agreed to buy medical device maker St. Jude Medical for $25 billion and AbbVie announced a $5.8 billion deal for cancer firm Stemcentrx, highlighting a pattern of healthcare companies snapping up smaller rivals.
Biotech Dumb Money Looks Smart in $6 Billion Stemcentrx Sale [MIT Technology Review] Stemcentrx was founded on the theory that certain cancers have stem cells that drive them to spread. It built a slick manufacturing center and a huge colony of more than 18,000 mice. The setup allowed them to try and launch a large number of drugs against different cancers. So far, it has reported results for only one drug, to treat small-cell lung cancer, but has several others in early testing.
AbbVie forges deeper into cancer, as clock ticks for Humira [Reuters] "Oncology is an important growth driver and an area we plan to build a leading portfolio," Michael Severino, AbbVie's chief scientific officer, said in an interview.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA,...
FDA sued for hiding too much info about its expert panel members [STAT] The resumes are publicly available, because they are posted on the FDA web site prior to committee meetings. But Public Citizen charged that the FDA often makes it difficult to learn about possible bias or conflict, because the agency redacts information from most resumes submitted by advisory committee members, according to its lawsuit.
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
Costs for Orally Administered Cancer Drugs Skyrocket [UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center] The researchers report in JAMA Oncology that a month of treatment with orally administered cancer drugs introduced in 2014 were, on average, six times more expensive at launch than cancer drugs introduced in 2000 after adjusting for medical inflation.
NICE recommends combined drug therapy proven to extend life for skin cancer [NICE] NICE has published final draft guidance recommending trametinib in combination with dabrafenib to treat a type of skin cancer that has spread and can’t be surgically removed.
Express Scripts plans fiercer fight against sudden drug price hikes [Reuters] Miller said Express Scripts planned to expand a new pricing scheme in which it pays for cancer drugs based on how well studies show they work for a particular disease.
	6.5 Médecines alternatives
Cassandra Callender, the teen who refused chemotherapy, has relapsed [Respectful Insolence] I hate these stories, because they so seldom end well. Unfortunately, this one is more messy than even the usual messiness of the typical story of this type. The type of story I’m referring to, of course, is one that I’ve told from time to time ever since near the first year of this blog’s existence, that of the child or teen with cancer who, for whatever reason, refuses curative chemotherapy in favor of some sort of quackery.