Onco Actu du 21 octobre 2016

	1. Biologie
Science Snaps: leukaemia cells are born to run [Cancer Research UK] “Our original goal was to identify leukaemia’s hiding place to develop drugs that flush out the cancer cells, and stop them becoming resistant to chemotherapy,” Lo Celso says. “But there is no ‘hiding place’ to target.”
Tumour cells may ‘hijack’ white blood cells to help spread [Cancer Research UK] Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory found that neutrophils – the most common type of white blood cell – can be ‘hijacked’ by cancer cells and used to aid the spread of breast tumours to the lungs in mice.
Metabolomics Study Reveals another Energy Source for Cancer Cells [NCI] Using new metabolomics technologies, the researchers found that cancer cells can use the compound lactate to fuel biochemical reactions and to generate other compounds needed for cell growth, such as lipids to build new cellular membranes. Metabolomics is the science of measuring small molecules, such as glucose, amino acids, and cholesterol, within a biological sample.
	3.5 Prévention - UV
Doctors think you don’t use enough sunscreen [Reuters] In a survey of 156 U.S. dermatologists, every single one of them agreed that sunscreen reduces premature aging of the skin, or photoaging, and 97 percent agreed that it also lowers the risk of cancer. But 99 percent of them also think their patients don’t apply enough sunscreen.
	4.10 Dép., diag. & prono. - FDA, EMA, NICE,...
NICE recommends wider use of tests to detect cancer-causing genetic condition [NICE] In draft guidance published today for consultation NICE has recommended that everyone who is diagnosed with colorectal cancer should be tested for an inherited genetic condition called Lynch syndrome (LS).
Illumina, Genentech and BIO Weigh in on FDA Draft Guidance on Companion Diagnostics [RAPS] The six public comments on the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) draft guidance on companion diagnostics were mostly positive, with Genentech calling the draft “crucial for the advancement of personalized medicine,” while Illumina said it was “worth the wait,” though all commenters expressed interest in more clarity from FDA.
	5. Traitements
This New Nanotechnology Could Become the Next Major Cancer Breakthrough [Fortune] The results were modest, but promising: Three out of the nine mice given the nanoparticle showed no evidence of breast cancer progression, while all mice in the control group continued to worsen.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
Assess institutional review boards by their quality of decisions, not ownership [STAT] What has changed is clinical research. Local IRBs, sometimes called institutional IRBs, have traditionally had jurisdiction over one research project in one location. Today, clinical trials tend to have multiple investigators in multiple locations, all following the same protocol.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Seeing past cancer’s invisibility cloak [Cancer Research UK] The duo has been using an experimental drug to block a molecule that helps make PD-1, called glycogen synthase kinase 3, or GSK3. Blocking GSK3 stops PD-1 being made, says Rudd, and helps kick immune cells into action.
A New Immunotherapy Option for Treating Lung Cancer [AACR] Given that there are more than 90 clinical trials testing atezolizumab as a potential treatment for various types of cancer listed on clinical trials.gov, it is likely that the use of this immunotherapeutic will be expanded in the future.
	5.12.1 Immunothérapies - partenariats
Merck, Pfizer link with Debiopharm to test immunotherapy combo [PharmaTimes] The groups plan to test a combination of Debio 1143, an oral, small molecule inhibitor of IAPs (Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins), in combination with avelumab, an investigational fully human anti-PD-L1 IgG1 monoclonal antibody, in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
	5.2 Pharma
ARIAD Reaffirms Commitment to Discovering and Developing Treatments for Patients with Rare Cancers [Ariad] Importantly, to achieve its mission, ARIAD has invested more than $1.3 billion in R&D and accumulated losses of approximately $1.4 billion since the Company was founded, which have not been recovered.
Roche highlights I/O combos, as it drops solo development of vanucizumab [FierceBiotech] Vanucizumab was intended as a follow-on to Genentech blockbuster cancer drug Avastin (bevacizumab). But parent company Roche has opted to discontinue the development of the candidate as a cancer monotherapy on a Phase II trial failure.
Roche bid for Avastin follow-on suffers blow with trial failure [Reuters] Roche had been hoping vanucizumab would win approval as a stand-alone follow-up drug for Avastin, once its U.S. patent protections expire come 2019 and biosimilar copies emerge. But Dan O'Day, head of Roche's pharmaceuticals division, said the monoclonal antibody did not meet its primary endpoint -- progression-free survival -- when compared head-to-head against Avastin in a phase II study against mCRC.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
AllTrials welcomes EMA’s transparency drive as it posts first set of CSRs [FierceBiotech] Unhappy pharma companies, many of which have resisted the calls for transparency, have over the past four years fought back against the EMA, hence the delays and compromises over the release of data.
FDA official warns other drug makers not to copy Sarepta [STAT] “First, we may see companies asking the FDA for approval based on less robust data sets than have been accepted in the past. “Second, companies may hope to engage patient advocates in the FDA approval process in a much more direct way than they have in the past. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if companies sought to involve themselves more closely with patient advocacy groups going forward,” Sachs added.
EMA Transparency: New Clinical Reports Go Live [RAPS] The amount of data contained within the reports is staggering. According to EMA, the data released today for Kyprolis and Zurampic total roughly 260,000 pages of information from more than 100 clinical reports.
Opening up clinical data on new medicines [EMA] “Transparency on clinical data is a longstanding commitment from EMA and today, we are delivering on our promise to give access to the data on which our recommendations are based”, explained EMA’s Executive Director Guido Rasi.
	5.3.4 Traitements - AMM (FDA, EMA)
Eli Lilly Wins FDA Nod for New Soft Tissue Sarcoma Drug [Xconomy] Lilly still must conduct a Phase 3 trial to confirm the results of its earlier study. The company says that the Phase 3 trial is already fully enrolled.
New treatment recommended for kidney cancer [NICE] In July 2016 the NICE appraisal committee found the trial data on nivolumab for kidney cancer was immature, which meant the long-term survival was uncertain. Therefore, it could not be recommended for routine NHS use. In response the company adjusted their cost-analysis and proposed a new simple discount patient access scheme for nivolumab. They also provided data from recently published phase I and phase II trials, which included longer-term follow-up data on mortality.
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
Op-Ed: Our View on Value Frameworks in Oncology: Proposing Principles for Value Framework Development [OBR] Based upon our reviews of this report, ICER appears to represent a perspective that is less oriented towards patient benefit than towards motivations that would limit patient access to new therapeutic options.
Oncologists knock ICER's lung cancer cost-effectiveness review [FiercePharma] “At this point, a minority of patients actually benefit,” Ollendorf said. “Patients who get the benefit, receive a substantial benefit. The problem is that we don’t have good enough targeting technology yet to be able to predict who those patients are."
Defining the True Value of Innovation in Cancer Treatment [BMS] Specifically, we believe that the primary objective of an accurate and comprehensive cost-effectiveness analysis, specific to PD-1 immunotherapies, should properly identify the highest value treatment for each distinct patient. ICER violates this principle by inappropriately comparing outcomes among different target populations.
Sanders seeks Ariad data on cancer drug price hikes [STAT] As we reported previously, Ariad effectively doubled the price of its 15 mg tablet. Until September 2014, a two-month supply, which was 60 tablets, carried a list price of $10,350, but Ariad discontinued sales of this quantity. Instead, the company began charging the same price for 30 tablets of the 15 mg dose.
Bernie Sanders, U.S. Rep Cummings seek info on Ariad leukemia drug [Reuters] The letter was sent a week after Senator Sanders tweeted that: "Drug corporations' greed is unbelievable. Ariad raised the price of a leukemia drug to almost $199,000 a year."
	6. Lutte contre les cancers
AACR Issues Call for New SU2C Dream Team to Launch Attack on Colorectal Cancer [AACR] Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) announced today it will launch a new attack on colorectal cancer, committing up to $7 million (US) for a new Dream Team to find ways to improve treatment of the disease.
	6.10.1 Politiques (USA)
The Cancer Moonshot, Hereditary Cancers and Population Genetic Screening [CDC Genomics and Health Impact Blog] Implementation of the Cancer Moonshot recommendations for increased testing for people with hereditary cancers will explore the various ways to achieve maximum public health benefits. More broadly, a public health success for HBOC and LS could serve as a model for genetic testing for conditions that expand beyond cancer.
	6.11 Patients
'I sold my house to fund cancer treatment in Germany' [BBC News] Former Emmerdale actress Leah Bracknell is to receive "cutting edge" treatment at a private clinic in Germany after receiving £50,000 in donations on a fundraising website following a terminal lung cancer diagnosis.
	6.7 DMP, Big Data & applis
Automating big-data analysis [MIT News] Developed by Schreck and Veeramachaneni, the new language, dubbed Trane, should reduce the time it takes data scientists to define good prediction problems, from months to days.
CancerLinQ™ Platform Hits Milestone of Having More than One Million Patient Records in System [ASCO] Seventy Practices Have Signed Agreements to Participate.
	6.8 Communication
How a cancer group thwarted Facebook's censorship: square breasts [The Guardian] The Swedish Cancer Society has come up with a new strategy to evade Facebook’s censorship of female anatomy: make round breasts square.